PIRAEUS - KAMINIA - 2006

Piraeus, Kaminia, 6-8 Erythraias Street. Alexandra Syrogianni (ΚΣΤ’ ΕΠΚΑ) reports the discovery of four cist graves and three simple burials (figs. 1, 2), the latter covered with alluvial sediments.

Cist grave three (2.15 x 0.81m) had escaped looting and was the richest of all. It was the only cist built of worked stones (the others were of roughly-worked slabs), and had a monolithic cover stone. The interior was coated in yellowish plaster. It contained a well-preserved inhumation (head to the southeast), half of a bronze vessel (possibly a phiale), a bronze probe, a bronze coin, three metal hoops, iron nails and a pair of gold earrings with semiprecious red stones. The remaining cist graves contained a few sherds, unguentaria and strigil fragments with the poorly preserved skeletons. Cist grave one also contained parts of a gold wreath resembling those excavated from the simple burials a and c. Conservation of the cranium from grave one revealed a gold coin depicting an owl.

The plain burials were highly disturbed by the action of the alluvial sediments. Nonetheless, they contained fragments of gold wreaths (fig. 3).

Inscribed columns date the burials to the Roman period.