The funerary monument K3
of the Gymnasium at ancient Messene
Petros Themelis
Director of Excavations at Ancient Messene, F. Professor of Classical Archaeology, Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete, Greece
The funerary monument K3, more than nine meters high, imposing on the western wing of the Gymnasium at ancient Messene with its unique conical roof, was constructed in the first quarter of the 3rd century. BC to accept the dead bodies of eight heroised dead of a financially and politically powerful family of the Messenian elite: three women and five men, whose names are written on the eastern side of the rectangular grave chamber Epikrateia, Nikoxena, Nikicha, [- - - -]tinos, Agesistratos, Epikrates, [- - -]ippos and Xenippos). During the 1st century AD the members of another Messenian aristocratic family, that of Dionysios son of Aristomenes, used the same brilliant funerary monument, after some work of repairing and rearranging the tombs in the chamber for their burial and placing the marble statues of their eminent dead citizens in front of the monument on the pedestals of earlier bronze honorary statues, exercising the well-known practice of "recycling".
Key words: ephebi, passports customs, ancestors, burial monuments, afiroismos, recycling, psychopompos
COPYRIGHT: © Themes in Archaeology, 2018 - ISSN 2653-9292
Author for correspondence: pthemeles@gmail.com
The original article is in the Library of the Themes in Archeology
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Το πρωτότυπο άρθρο βρίσκεται στη βιβλιοθήκη του περιοδικού Θέματα Αρχαιολογίας
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