Kerameikos (Athens)

Kerameikos Athens

 

Location: Ermou 148, Thisefo, Athens
Tel. 210 346 3552
Subway: Thisefo
Open: 8:30am- 3pm Tue- Sun
11am- 3pm Mon

Kerameikos Athens Kerameikos Athens Kerameikos Athens

Kerameikos is an ancient cemetery of Athens. First burials date back to the 12th century. The Sacred Way that started in Eleusis led here. Most of statues were removed, but their plaster casts stands on its previous location.

 

Historical data

In particular, however, the name Kerameikos referred to in Ancient Athens two districts that were located at the northwest end of Athens at the time, the so-called "Exo Kerameikos" and "Eso Kerameikos". In other words, two Potters, as Hesychius says, one outside the wall, the other inside. This distinction is also mentioned by Plato, Thucydides and Plutarch. Kerameikos was the first public cemetery of ancient Athens.

These two ancient districts made up the municipality of Keramea, from the Akamantida tribe. The name of this municipality came according to some from the named hero Keramos while according to others from the artisan potters (potters - potters) and from their workshops that were originally in this area. The two Kerameiki were separated from each other by the Themistocleian wall (479 BC), and were connected by the large double gate called "Dipylo" to which the ancient Piraeus road, the Holy road, from and to the ancient Eleusis and the street to the Plato Academy. Inside Dipylos, a long avenue started that through the ancient market and between the hills of Pnyka and Areio Pago ended at the entrance of the Acropolis. Thus, the Exo Kerameikos had a burial character, while the Eso Kerameikos had a residential character.

From the Hellenistic period to the early Christian times (338 BC to the 6th century) the cemetery seems to have operated continuously.

 

Out Kerameikos

The area of Exo Kerameikos was crossed by converging, as mentioned above, three great ancient roads (roads), the one from Piraeus called "Piraeus", the one from Eleusis, called "Sacred Road" and the so-called "Road" known as (h) the Panathenaic Road , to and from Plato's Academy. In front of the wall and on either side of each of these streets were the tombs (cemeteries) of ancient Athens, with the result that the entire area gives the impression of a large cemetery, which was brought to light by the archaeological excavations that began timidly in 1861, and officially by 1863 during the reign of King George I, initially by the Hellenic Archaeological Society and then by the German Archaeological Institute of Athens where they continue to this day.

This cemetery of Kerameikos is located in the area of the current church of Agia Triada, on Piraeus Street, in the district of the same name in Athens and north of the old vegetable market, Gazi area, which today has been converted into a park and a pedestrian street where the street ends Ermou on Piraeus Street. The best-preserved part of the ancient outer Kerameikos today are the private tombs located south of the church of the Holy Trinity that flanked the end of the Sacred Way and indeed those on the right side of the entrance from the west.

The oldest tombs of the site date back to the Bronze Age. From the Sub-Mycenaean period (1100-1000 BC) onwards the Kerameikos cemetery has been continuously developing. During the Geometric period (1000-700 BC) and especially during the Archaic period (700-480 BC) the graves multiply and are included in burial mounds where they are "marked" with epitaphic monuments. During the Classical period (5th - 4th century BC) the two roads that approached Dipylos (external and western, i.e. the one from Piraeus and the Holy Road), were flanked by cemeteries and funerary monuments, usually family ones, distinguished by burials monuments. In this area and towards Akadimias Platona Street that passed next (north) from the current church of the Holy Trinity, the "Public Sign" was created where it was the burial place of prominent Athenians as well as the "fallen in war", with character military cemetery.

Double
The Dipylon (named from the double construction) was the main gate (entrance) of ancient Athens. It was discovered by the Archaeological Society's excavations in the years 1872-1874. It is located about 150 meters east of the church of the Holy Trinity and consists of the outer gate, the corridor (entrance-exit) and the inner gate.

The outer gate of the wall is flanked by two openings each 3.5 meters wide and protected by two square towers on either side that protrude 8 meters from the wall.
The courtyard corridor is 47.40 meters long and is formed by the extension of the two walls (legs) of the wall, inside its main line.
The inner gate located at the end of the entrance courtyard is almost identical in construction to the outer gate, in terms of openings and bastions.
But apart from the Dipylus there was still a smaller gate, the Holy Gate, southwest of the Dipylus which belonged to the Ceramic Gates of the wall, also fortified, which Wilhelm Derpfeld considered as an opening for the waters of the ancient stream Iridanos.

 

Eso Kerameikos
To the east of the inner gate of the Dipylus and the Themistocleian wall stretches the Eso Kerameikos, that is, the district of ancient Athens which constituted its most important part, which was crossed by the great road, the so-called Panathenaic road, which was the central road artery of city, according to Imerios "a straight and smooth road, which descends from above, cuts through the long arcades on either side of it (Kerameiko) when the Athenians buy".

According to the detailed descriptions of this area by Pausanias, immediately after the inner gate of Dipylus was the Pompeio and many other buildings, temples, arcades, public institutions which were located in the Ancient Agora, which was also the largest and most important part of the Eso Kerameikos , so much so that the name Kerameikos is often identified with the Ancient Agora in the texts.

Archaeological site
The approximately 40-acre archaeological site of Kerameikos was covered until its excavation by embankments 8-9 meters high, i.e. the current level of Ermou Street. Today the visitor to the site walks exactly on the same level as the Athenians walked in the classical era.

During the construction of the "Kerameikos" metro station, approximately 1,000 tombs from the 4th and 5th centuries BC were found in the so-called plague pit. The archaeologist Efi Baziotopoulou-Valavani dated the cemetery to the period between 430 and 426 BC. Thucydides described the panic caused by the plague, possibly an epidemic of typhoid fever, which struck the city in 430 BC. The epidemic lasted two years and is estimated to have killed a third of the population. He wrote that lifeless bodies had been abandoned in temples and streets, only to be picked up and buried hastily. The disease reappeared in the winter of 427 BC.

Recent findings at Kerameikos include the excavation of a Kouros, 2.1 meters high, which was excavated by the German Archaeological Institute of Athens under the guidance of Professor Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier. This kouros is twice the size of the one exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and both were crafted by the same anonymous sculptor, who was called the "craftsman of the Dipylus." Large sections adjacent to those that have already been excavated remain to be discovered, as they lie beneath the buildings of modern Athens. Excavation of these areas has been suspended until funds are secured.

 

The current district of Kerameikos
Kerameikos is a district located between the districts of Koumoundourou Square, Gazi, Thisio, Monastiraki, Petralona, Metaxourgeio and Psyrri. It got its name from the Archaeological site of Kerameikos around which it developed. It is crossed by Piraeus Street and its boundaries are the odd-numbered side of Thermopylon Street, the even-numbered side of Leonidou Street and the even-numbered side of Iera Odos in the section between Piraeus Street and Iera Odos . In the section between Piraeus and Ermou Streets, the boundaries are the even-numbered side of Agion Asomaton Street, the even-numbered side of Ermou Street and the odd-numbered side of Sarri Street. The district is home to the Church of the Holy Trinity and is served by the Metro and many city bus lines. In the past, one of the tram stations was located behind the Church of the Holy Trinity.