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Funeral monuments from the Kerameikos cemetery at Athens. After 1100 BC, Greeks began to bury their dead in individual graves rather than group tombs. Athens, however, was a major exception; the Athenians normally cremated their dead and placed their ashes in an urn. [4]
In ancient Greece, cremation was usual, and the ashes were typically placed in a painted Greek vase. In particular, the lekythos , the shape of vase , was used for holding oil in funerary rituals. Romans placed the urns in a niche in a collective tomb called a columbarium (literally, dovecote ).
Ancient Greek funerary vases are decorative grave markers made in ancient Greece that were designed to resemble liquid-holding vessels. These decorated vases were placed on grave sites as a mark of elite status. There are many types of funerary vases, such as amphorae, kraters, oinochoe, and kylix cups, among others.
The krater was discovered buried, as a funerary urn for a Thessalian aristocrat whose name is engraved on the vase: Astiouneios, son of Anaxagoras, from Larissa.Kraters (mixing bowls) were vessels used for mixing undiluted wine with water and probably various spices as well, the drink then being ladled out to fellow banqueters at ritual or festive celebrations.
The endeavour by archaeologists to match vase forms with those names that have come down to us from Greek literature began with Theodor Panofka’s 1829 book Recherches sur les veritables noms des vases grecs, whose confident assertion that he had rediscovered the ancient nomenclature was quickly disputed by Gerhard and Letronne.
Ceramic dogs are also widely known from looted tombs, and are thought by some to represent psychopomps (soul guides), [81] although dogs were often the major source of protein in ancient Mesoamerica. [82] A funerary urn in the shape of a "bat god" or a jaguar, from Oaxaca, dated to CE 300–650. [83]