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Ayos Athanassios 1994 : the chronicle of a discovery

• Τσιμπίδου - Αυλωνίτη, Μαρία

The excavation of the tumulus NW of Ayos Athanassios was followed by the investigation of the large tumulus on the E edge of the modern village. This is an official archaeological site next to a Macedonian tomb with an Ionic façade, which was uncovered in the 1970s. The excavation of the local burial mounds, their landscaping, and their unification in an integrated archaeological park was part of a programme conducted by 16th Ephoreia of Prehistoricand Classical Antiquities for Thessaloniki, European City of Culture 1997.However, the excavation of the large tumulus had to be brought forward in view of the imminent expansion eastwards of the Ayos Athanassios urban plan, which posed the immediate threat of the tumulus’s being swallowed up by building land.The first trial trench, along the E slope of the tumulus, located twoundesecrated cist-graves. The first was a simple tomb with mudbrick walls and a brick-built structure within, on which the corpse had been laid. Four spearheads and two pairs of bronze spurs may offer an indication of the deceased’s military rank and social class. The most valuable of the grave goods were a silver kalyx-kantharosand an unusual spherical unguentarium decorated with incised pentagons. Two ordinary unguent aria and a small black-glazed skyphos date the burial to around the late 4th or early 3rd c. BC.A short distance to the N, another burial structure was uncovered, with anentrance and an unusual false façade imitating the façade of a Macedonian tomb. The interior walls were covered with coloured plaster, and objects from agynaikonitis were depicted on the white band running along the top. On a built base at the back of the tomb was a silver larnax (in fact, a small wooden chest with a silver facing), in which the dead woman’s burnt bones had been placed together with a silver finger-ring. The pottery dates the monument to the end of the 4th c. BC. Peripheral trenches were then dug and the stratigraphy constantly studied, and, after about two months of intensive labours, a small single-chambered Macedonian tomb was located precisely in the centre of the enormous tumulus, 12 m below the top. Although the monument had been broken into as early as the ancient period, the lavishly decorated façade with its amazing colours and, fortunately, minimal damage, was recompense enough.Confronted griffins with golden wings adorn the pediment. Below these are blue triglyphs and white metopes, and a narrow frieze over the doorway bears a crowded symposium scene. Two young men wrapped in long chlamydesare depicted beside the entrance to the monument, eternal guardians of, perhaps, a brother in arms. This is obviously the tomb of a prominent military man, as is also indicated by what still remains of his iron weaponry in the chamber that the robbers virtually destroyed in their quest for treasure

• History and Archaeology

• Ανασκαφές (Αρχαιολογία)

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