In Classical Athens, the gifts that accompanied the corpse were placed in ditches, or in specific places in the pit-grave's coverlet of earth, or around the corpse. The class of grave-offerings of which we have most examples are clay pots (e.g. kylix, lekanis, ribbon-handled banded plate [pinakion], white-ground lekythos, lebes gamikos, hydria, and chytra). These pots are black-glazed either with or without impressed motifs, undecorated, sometimes without red-figures and sometimes even unslipped. Two types of pot that were specially associated with child burials were the chous (a small trefoil-lipped oinochoe) and the thelastron.

A second class of grave-offerings were stone vessels of marble or alabaster: (pyxis with lid, plemochoe, and alabastron). Some, such as the alabaster vessels known as pseudo-alabastra, were made in one solid piece, and this is an indication that they were used only for burials. Favourite objects, as well as pots, could be grave-offerings to the dead. Some objects of this sort found in the graves of Classical Athens were toys, strigils, and mirrors. A small amount of jewelry has been found in Classical Athenian tombs - mostly bronze and gold rings and earrings. Clay statuettes have also been found in a number of tombs, and show figures of a familiar and popular kind: seated female figures, busts, animals, toys, and plangones.


We cannot be certain what some of the finds in Classical Athenian graves were meant for. For example, there are miniature arms (to the elbow) ten centimetres long; the arm being outstretched and the fingers closed. Often the arm is supported on a flat base. They were quite possibly involved some kind of white magic. In some of the graves we find curse tablets and miniature lead coffins.



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