Death and Burial
A lot of what we know about the Ancient Greeks comes from their burials. They often buried dead people with some of their possessions and marked graves with carved gravestones. Graveyards were outside the wall of a city. This kept wandering spirits away from the living. Graveyards were dangerous for another reason. Beggars and criminals often lurked there, so keeping them outside the city was a good idea.
When someone was buried, their body was carried outside the city, followed by friends and relatives. Rich people sometimes hired extra people to follow the procession, weeping and wailing and tearing at their hair and clothes (a sign of mourning to the Greeks).
The woman on this pot are walking in a procession, which may be a picture of a funeral. At the time this picture was pinted (8th centure BC), large pots were used to more graves. When the procession reached the burial place, the body might be buried, or it could be burnt, and the ashes buried. The dead person was often buried with some of their belongings.
A woman might be buried with some of her jewellery, pots of make-up and perfume, and often with tools used for spinning and weaving; a man might be buried with his weapons. Pottery is often found; and so are small coins.
Graves were important to the Ancient Greeks. At some religious festivals, they gathered at the tombs of relatives and made offerings of food, wine and oil to the dead.
In early greek history, graves were marked with gravestones, called stelai. Sometimes these were decorated with pictues. Others had an inseription which said who was buried there, who their family was, and sometimes where the came from and how old they were. This one is broken but you can see that it is carred to look like a building, with a columm and a pointed roof. It marked the grave of a man called pantakles.