Παρατηρήσεις επί του εθίμου της καύσεως των νεκρών εις την Ελλάδα
Part of : Αρχαιολογικά ανάλεκτα εξ Αθηνών ; Vol.VI, No.2, 1973, pages 356-366
Issue:
Pages:
356-366
Parallel Title:
Remarks on the burial custom of cremation in Greece
Section Title:
Σκινδαλαμοί
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Abstract:
A cremation burial of the LH III C period recently found in a chamber tomb at north Elis, near the village of Agrapidochori ( AE 1971, Parart. 52 ff. ), is added to the catalogue of cremations in the Aegean prepared by Andronicos ( Totenkult, Arch. Ilomerika III, 1968, W 51 ff. ) and Iakovides ( Perati, B 1970, 271 ff. ). The style of the III G pottery recalls the contemporary pottery of Achaea foreboding the Submycenaean style of the area.There is no distinction between ionic and doric national element as far as the burial customs are concerned. The distinction between Dorians and Ionians is a later and artificial one, as Bury had already pointed out ( History of Greece, 1913, 327 ). You will search in vain after the end of the 12th century B.G. ( i.e. the period the Dorian Invasion is generally placed ) onwards to the 8th cent. B.C. and after, to find an element in the greek art which you could call doric. It is interesting to see how the so called doric styl“ is found in ionic regions and vice versa. Both styles draw their origin from the mycenaean artistic tradition which was neither ionic nor doric ( Kontoleon, Aspects, 75 ff ).According to the evidence of new archaeological researches the theory of the North Invasion is being abandoned ( Snodgrass, The Dark Age in Greece, 1971, passim).In the Submycenaean - Protogeometric cemetery of Lefkandi ( Popham- Sackett, Exc. at Lefkandi, 1968, 23 ff,P. Themelis, AAA II ( 1969 ) 99 in all three groups of the excavated 146 tombs and 74 pyres only four rock - cut pits contained inhumation burials, all the rest being associated with cremation. Two of the above four rock - cut tombs contained the inhumated body of warriors buried with their iron swords ; this may imply that the leaders of the community were still buried in the traditional way of the mycenaean heroic period. This interpretation presupposes that the inhumated leaders were conscious of their mycenaean descent and knew the way their ancestrale were buried.In the protogeometric period cremation is widely spread. Despite that the traditional helladic way of burying the dead, the inhumation, was never completely forgotten. In some periods after the protogeometric as for example at about the middle of the 8th and at the end of the 7th cent. B.G., inhumations increase according to Kerameikos’ excavation results. At the middle of the 8th cent. B.C. epic poetry was written down; at the same time the monumental grave amphorae of the Dipylon painter with the first narrative representations were created. All three contemporaneous phaenomena ( increase of inhumations, homeric poetry, monumental grave vases ) cannot be taken as accidental. The representations of the attic monumental vases constitute a « painted » heroic Epos, corresponding to the homeric written poetry; both unique creations express the revival of the great past, exactly like the increase of inhumations.Benson ( Horse, Bird and Man, 1970, 114 ff. ) tries to bridge the gap between the mycenaean and the striking similar to that geometric pictorial style by suggesting that the people of the geometric period came accidentaly into contact with mycenaean works of art. Both cultures however might have come into contact at any other period not necessarily at the second half of the 8th century B.G. The second half of the 8th c. B.C. was a flourishing period ( colonisation, first panhellenic wars), when the Greeks were consciously looking for links with the great mycenaean past.It has been suggested by some scholars that the cremation rites have been introduced into Greece from the North ( Lorimer, JHS 53 ( 1933) 168. Wiesner, Grab und Jenseits, 119 ff., Alexiou, Minoikos Polit., 106 ff., Bou- zek, Homerisches Griechenland, 1969, 126 ff. ). Bouzek not being able to bring into contact the areas of the central Europe and the central Balkans with Greece, jumping over the fence of Thrace and Illyria where inhumation prevails, brings forward another alternative : He stresses the evidence of the hand made pottery and the bell - idols from Attica and other greek regions, thus finding connections through these with the « Urnengräber » culture of central Balkans. He comes to the following conclusion : Glockenidole und Keramik, die den mittelbalkanischen nahe stehen, sind in den am reichsten ausgestatteten Frauengräbern ( of Kera- meikos ) vertreten; angenommen, daß diese Keramik und diese Idole vonirgendeiner Zuwanderergruppe aus dem Mittelbalkan mitgebracht worden sei, ist es nicht weiter verwunderlich, wenn diese Gruppe mit der Zeit auch im Bestattungsritus tonangebend geworden ist ».However the greek bell - idols ( from Attica, Boeotia, Rhodes, Samos, Lef- kandi ) 1 : are not contemporary and stylistically similar to one another and 2 : they are quite different in structure and style from the idols found in Dupljaja, Çirna, Kliçevac etc., which Bouzek treats as being identical to the greek examples. The balkan idols cannot be considered as forerunners or even similar to the greek ones and consequently they cannot support the theory of the north origin of the greek idols or their introduction into Greece by the « Invaders ».The old view that the Dorians brought cremation into Greece was never anything more than a guess and the progress of excavation has shown it to be devoid of foundation. New material from Asia Minor has shown that cremation there was a normal practice throughout the 2nd millennium B.C. At the end of the 13th cent. B.C. cremation was introduced into the neighbouring North Syria ( Kar- kemish, Hama, Tell Sukas ). At about the same time we have the first mycenaean cremation burials in Greece, more abundant at the LH IH C. Asia Minor and North Syria are the most probable candidates for the introduction of cremation rites into Greece, through the mycenaean colonies and tradeposts there.
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Keywords:
ήθη και έθιμα, Ελλάς
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