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A Contribution to the Study of Athenian Pyres

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A Contribution to the Study of Athenian Pyres HESPERIA 68.2, I999 A CUR$[E I N A C HYT RI WIO N A CONTRIBUTION TO THE STUDY OF ATHENIAN PYRES In the earliest years of their work in the Athenian Agora, American exca- vators came upon a number of deposits of an unusual type: a shallow de- pression or irregular pit, with marked evidence of burning on its floor, containing multiple vessels of a limited of standard forms.1 Most of 1. For initial permissionto publish range the pot and the curse tablet discussed the pots were miniatures-commonly, small plates and saucers, lekanides, below we are indebted to T. Leslie and cooking pots-but alabastra,larger plates, and a full-size drinking cup ShearJr., and for their drawingsof or lamp were sometimes included. Occasionally a few tiny and calcined Figures 1 and 3, to RichardAnderson fragments of bone were recovered.These deposits never appeared within and Anne Hooton, respectively.The the Agora square itself, but they were common among the houses and wizardryof Craig Mauzy is responsible for the digitally enhancedimage in workshops that surroundedit. They were particularlynumerous in the so- Figure 2, createdfrom a contact print called Industrial District southwest of the Agora, which Rodney Young for which the negativehad been excavated in the late 1930s and the 1940s. Taking the bone fragments to destroyed.Thanks are due as well to Jan be human, Young published the contents of fourteen such deposits from Jordan,who arrangedaccess to the that part of the city in his article "Sepulturaeintra urbem,"2 interpreting objects.We are also pleased to them as the cremationgraves of infants and christening them "pyreburials." acknowledgehere the suggestionsmade by Hesperia'sanonymous referees. This conclusion has long been viewed with skepticism. Homer All ancient dates in this article Thompson expressed his doubts in the early 1970s, citing the shallowness are B.C. of the deposits and the absence of markers.3A decade later,Ursula Knigge 2. Young 1951, pp. 110-130. and Wilfried Kovacsovics rejected this interpretation of similar deposits Referencesto more recentlydiscovered under Bau Z in the Kerameikos, pointing out that infant cremation is pyres are listed in AgoraXXIX, p. 212, note 48. otherwise virtuallyunknown.4 Finally, study of better-preservedbones from 3.AgoraXIV,p. 16. similar deposits more recently unearthed in the Agora has shown that the 4. Knigge and Kovacsovics1981, bones are animal rather than human.5These deposits seem, then, to bear p. 388. Nonetheless, the pyres have witness to some kind of sacrificialritual rather than human burial, and the occasionallybeen cited in general name has been adjusted to "ritualpyre," "saucer pyre," or simply "pyre."l handbooksas possible evidence for Recent speculation has connected them with rites attending the construc- infant cremationin Hellenistic Athens, e.g., in Garland 1985, pp. 82, 161, and tion or remodeling of a building, the memorializing of the dead, or the Kurtz and Boardman1971, p. 99. propitiation of the spirits of the deceased.6 Full investigation of the phe- 5. Shear 1973, p. 151, note 68; nomenon lies outside the scope of this paper. As a contribution toward see also below, p. 148, with note 10. that investigation, however, we would like to present a unique conjunc- 6. See for AgoraXXIX, pp. 212-217 tion-a lead curse tablet found inside a typical pyre vessel, a chytridion- recent discussionof the pyres and speculationabout the natureof the that has previously received only brief mention in the literature.7Because pyre ritual. of its importance for the understanding of Athenian pyres, we offer here 7. AgoraXXIX, p. 212. the full documentation of context, chytridion, and curse. American School of Classical Studies at Athens is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Hesperia ® www.jstor.org I48 JORDAN AND ROTROFF E~~~~~ 8~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ A 55.00mN I /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Tf ; / SQoo m N / /Ii HYT?IDI N~~ ~~~~~~~~aQo c, ~~~~~~~~~~ 2lw 1 3 etr Figure 1 (above, left). Plan of house CONTEXT on lower slopes of the Areiopagos. Drawingby R. C. Anderson Excavationsin 1938 and 1957 on the lowerslopes of the Areiopagos,south of the Agora square,uncovered a small rectangularbuilding, probably a Figure 2 (above, right). P 27880 in situ privatehouse of the 4th centuryor somewhatlater (Fig. 1).8Further clean- ing in 1967 revealedan east-westcrosswall dividing the buildinginto two roomsof approximatelyequal size. The chytridionand curse tablet in which we areinterested here were found in the northwestcorner of the southern- most room,apparently just overbedrock (Fig. 2); on the other side of the crosswall,which was robbedout at this point,was found a fragmentof a cookingpot. No floorlevels associated with the structureare reported, but we must assumethat these vesselslay underthe floorsor had been placed in a pit dug throughthem. A closeparallel to this situationmay be foundin the House of Menon and Mikion outsidethe southwestcorner of the Agora,where an olpe, a rilled-rimsaucer, and a fill-size chytracontaining a handfulof smallbones had been buriedin the line of the southeastwall of the house (deposit F 16:7).9Like our deposit,this one containedone largerpot (the chytra), 8. Shear 1939, p. 214; the building the alongwith a vesselcommonly found in pyres(the rilled-rimsaucer), and (without crosswall,which was discoveredlater) appearson the actual lay in the line of a robbed-outwall. The bones fromthe chytrawere ana- state plan of the Agora at O-P 18: see lyzed in 1975 by J. LawrenceAngel and provedto be the remainsof a AgoraXII, fig. 24. small animal,possibly a canid.10This deposit,then, was probablysacrifi- 9. Miller 1974, p. 210, note 80, cial, andT. Leslie ShearJr., in his preliminarypublication of the excava- pl. 35; for the location see p. 195, fig. 1. tion, likenedit to the pyreburials described above.1' The similarityof our 10. Angel's identificationof the bones is noted in unpublishedAgora depositto this one and the inclusionof a chytridion,a typicalpyre vessel, records.Miller (1974) interpretedthe serve to link our depositalso to pyreburials, and we would arguethat it deposit as an infant burial. sharedtheir function,whatever that was. 11. Shear 1969, pp. 393-394. A CURSE IN A CHYTRIDION I49 w Figure3. ChytridionP 27880. Drawing by A. Hooton CHYTRIDION The chytridionis a miniatureform of the chytra,'2the round-bottomed, lidless,one-handled cooking pot thatwas a standarditem of the Classical kitchen.The term is a modernone, coined to distinguishthe shapefrom the largerone on which it was modeled.'3Both its size and its material- our chytridionis madeof ordinaryhousehold fabric, rather than the hard, highly fired cooking fabricused for large chytrai-suggest that it was a votive, since it could not have withstood the heat involvedin the func- tionaluse of the shape.Votive rather than householduse is also suggested by the fact that chytridiaof this fabricare common in the pyre deposits discussedabove but rarelyoccur in deposits of householddebris, where they ought to havebeen well representedif they were part of the normal kitchenassemblage: only two of the eighteeninventoried chytridia of house- hold fabricfrom the Agoraexcavations were found in depositsother than pyres.14The chytridionunder discussion here, then, is probablypart of a ritualdeposit rather than chancehousehold debris. Agorainv. P 27880 Fig. 3 AgoraXXIX, p. 212. H. to rim6.3; Diam. 8.5; Diam. of rim5.7 cm Intact. Globularvessel with greatestdiameter below half height.Rounded bottomformed by wheel-trimmingthe undersidewhen pot was leather 12. For the chytra,see AgoraXII, hard;trace of originalflat undersidewith stringmark remains. Slightly pp.224-225. outturnedrim with wheel-rungroove at junctionwith body.Small, ir- 13. AgoraXII, p. 198. regularstrap handle from rim to shoulder.Household fabric: hard, fine 14. P 741 from cistern H 16:3 clay,between 5YR 7/4 and5YR 7/6 on MunsellSoil ColorChart; abun- (Thompson 1934, p. 341, B 32, fig. 21) and P 8412 from cistern D 11:2 dantfine, sparkling inclusions and a few largerwhite inclusions. Patches (AgoraXKIX, p. 387, no. 1482, fig. 87, of thin,dull red gloss at handleattachments, probably applied as adhesive p1.111). to aidin placementof handle. I50 JORDAN AND ROTROFF CHRONOLOGY Chytridiaare chronologically restricted to the periodwhen the pyreritual was practiced,from the end of the 5th centuryto the 3rdcentury B.c.15 No evolutioncan be discernedin this simpleshape, but the fabricof ourpiece allows us to date it with some accuracy.Chytridia in earlierpyres, still closely following the model of the larger,utilitarian chytrai, are always 15. For the dates, see AgoraXXIX, made of cookingfabric.'6 In the last quarterof the 4th centurychytridia p. 213. 16. See AgoraXXIX, p. 216. For begin to be made in householdfabric. This soon becomes the standard chytridiamade of cooking ware, see fabric,and all chytridiaof the 3rd centuryare made of it. Althoughpyres Young 1951, p. 115, pyre 1, no. 7, continueto be dedicatedwell down into the 3rd century,the latest ones pl. 50:a;p. 116, pyre 2, no. 11; p. 120, arepoor in offeringsand do not containchytridia.'7 The latestpyres with pyre 5, no. 11; p. 121, pyre 6, no. 13; chytridiaare probablyto be datedwithin the second quarterof the 3rd p. 125, pyre 8, nos. 9 and 10, pl. 52:b; p. 126, pyre 10, no. 9; p. 127, pyre 11, century,on the basisof the kantharoithat were included in the offerings.'8 nos. 5 and 6; Shear 1984, p. 46, note These factorsplace our chytridion between ca. 325 and ca.250. The treat- 91, pl. 11:c (P 31357, of cooking ware, ment of the bottom,with a tiny areaof the originalflat base remaining, not household ware as stated). For the suggeststhat the vesselwas madelater rather than earlier in that range,for dates of some of these pyres,see Agora this featureappears, though much more pronounced,in chytridiaof the XXIX, pp. 434, 436, 437, 439, under A B B B end of the 20:3, 17:4, 19:5, 22:3.
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