The main form of burial throughout most of early Greece was in single graves, either stone-lined or plain pits dug in the ground or cut out of bedrock. The bodies were cremated before burial or buried intact. Tombs grew elaborate with the passage of time.
During later times tombs of monumental size became common, ranging from the colossal Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, to the chamber tombs of Asia Minor, Macedon and North Africa, with painted architectural facades.
Funeral ritual called for laying out the body for display, carrying it to the graveyard for burial, and conducting a funeral ceremony at the grave site. At the time of the actual burial, terracotta vessels with food and drink were placed in the tomb next to the corpse or the urn of ashes. Other gifts were then added, such as weapons, knives and tools for men and jewelry, clothes and spindle-whorls for women, toys for children and terracotta figurines.
The funerary banquet was accompanied by animal
sacrifice, first at the grave site and later in the house of the
nearest kin.
Attic White Ground Lekythos
