Kerameikos

The Kerameikos site includes the boundary Area between the inner and outer grounds of ancient Athens. The Area is named Kerameikos because it was in the ancient deme (administrative unit) of Kerameis, a word which derives from the name of the god Keramos, patron of the ceramic artisans. One of the most ancient graveyards in Athens is situated in this site, in which the graves were arranged on the road sides. This Area started to be utilized as a graveyard in the end of the 3rd millennium BC. In the Geometric Period (900 – 700 BC), elaborated grave markers were used; the famous example is the Dipylon Amphora (middle of the 8th Century BC), now in the National Archaeological Museum. It is called the 'Dipylon amphora' because it was found near the Dipylon gate, in the Kerameikos site (although the Dipylon gate was constructed in the 5th Century BC). Other types of elaborate grave markers were used through the Archaic and the Classical periods. The Athenian funerary art ended when Demetrios of Phaleron proposed to ban the use of conspicuous graves in 317 BC. Also important in this site are the two ancient gates of Athens, the 'Sacred Gate' (that opened to the Sacred Road - Hiera Odos) and the 'Dipylon Gate', and some parts of the ancient circuit wall. They were constructed as Part Of the fortification project that was done by Themistokles in the 5th Century BC.