Athens – Kerameikos – Museum Artefacts

Athens, Kerameikos March 17, 2019 admin

There was a larger museum at Kerameikos than I had anticipated and it was well laid out, with plenty of descriptions clearly available. Below are some of the items that I thought were interesting.

Dating to between 430BC and 200BC, this is a naiskos, which is a mini temple and inside is a statuette of Cybele seated on a throne.

This small cart with a white horse dates to 675BC to 650BC, and the archaeologists can be that precise as the items were all found within an offering pit which had dating evidence.

These are small lead sheets which are from the Athenian cavalry and they have the name of the horse owners engraved into them. Number 15 is Aristokrates, 16 is Laches, 17 is Kleomedon, 18 is Python and 19 and 20, which are rolled up, are Kydios and Menon.

I’m not sure that I would want to be called python, it’s a Greek word for the huge serpent which was killed by Apollo, and later of course used as a word for a snake.

Small dishes dating from between 325BC and 500BC.

A marble ossuary, or container for human bones.

This is a Pyxis, or effectively a box, which has horse figurines on the lid. This was found as part of a female burial which took place in the eighth century BC.