A Dignified Passage through the Gates of Hades

Archaeological excavations at the Eleuthernian burial ground of Orthi Petra yielded a remarkable collection of jar burials in complex internal tomb stratification, containing cremated human bones accompanied by a most noteworthy assembly of burial artifacts of exquisite wealth.

Archaeological excavations at the Eleuthernian burial ground of Orthi Petra continue to yield significant elements of the archaeo-anthropological record, the subject matter of continuous interdisciplinary research, outreach, national and international acclaim. Among a plethora of features discovered, unearthing components of a unique nexus to the Geometric-Archaic Periods, was an unspoiled time capsule in astonishing contextual preservation, a hand carved tomb with a dromos into the softer bedrock material of Orthi Petra. Designated in short as contextual association A1K1, the tomb as a funerary activity area yielded a remarkable collection of jar burials in complex internal tomb stratification, containing cremated human bones accompanied by a most noteworthy assembly of burial artifacts of exquisite wealth, along a multitude of traces of “fossilized” behavior left resolutely behind by the ancients in their transactions on the paths of their perceived realities and obligations of life norms, but also of the arcane matters of afterlife. Such evidentiary data of funerary behavior in conjunction with the rest of the archaeo-anthropological record afford the opportunity to document where possible and deduce where pertinent aspects of the transitional period, overlapping the end of life’s journey and the unfolding of death in light of a number of the principles, the values, and the modes that guided the lives of the ancients as mortuary habits may have the transcending power to be revealing of certain codes of ante mortem conduct, of main beliefs, of ideologies and viewpoints, characteristic of their ideational world and hence of their attitudes toward, and expectations of, post mortem life. Such understandings, based on critical and deductive thinking combined with the data offered through the scope of anthropological archaeology and forensics by the decoding of traces permanently recorded on bone and dental surfaces, construct a persuasive dialectic, regarding important facets of the human condition in Eleutherna from Geometric through Archaic times.

Prologue
Introduction
Anthropological insights on monumental tomb A1K1
The warrior order of ancient Eleutherna
Deciphering conferred funerary whispers
Standing upright in Hades
Epilogue
Acknowledgements

ANAGNOSTIS P. AGELARAKIS is Professor of Anthropology at Adelphi University in New York. He studied Classical Archaeology and European Ethnology as an undergraduate, and as graduate Environmental Studies at Lund University and Lund Polytechnic Institute in Sweden. He holds a M. Phil. and Ph.D. (1989) in Anthropology from Columbia University, New York. In the earlier years of his career, he carried out field and/or lab archaeo-anthropological research projects focusing on the organizational abilities, capacities, and adaptations of the human condition during the Holocene in SE and SW Asia, the Middle East, the American Northeast, and the Caribbean. The central area of his research remains however the Eastern Mediterranean with emphasis on the ancient world of the Greeks, at the cross roads and sea routes between Africa, Asia, and Europe. Under the domains of Anthropological Archaeology, Funerary Archaeology, Bio-Archaeology and Forensics he studies the biological profiles, the demographic dynmics, and palaeopathological records of human skeletal populations from prehistoric periods to the late medieval era. Based on the skeletal record, he investigates issues relative to the changing dynamics in ancient warfare, the developments of the art of medicine particularly as it related to battle trauma surgery and healing regimens, as well as aspects on the decipherment of kinetic and occupational changes permanently recorded on bones and teeth. Further, he searches through archaeological anthropology for evidence that may fine-tune our knowledge on gender roles, and of the decorum and symbolism of burial customs and practices, always considering and juxtaposing where available with literary and historic records, as well as the rest of the archaeological record.

• By (author) Anagnostis P. Agelarakis