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After the Themistoclean walls were built, existing Athenian cemeteries spread outside some gates and new cemeteries grew up outside other gates. The Kerameikos continued to be an important cemetery for the west side of the city. Other cemeteries were also established just beyond the gateways to the two major roads running through the Sacred Way and the road to the Academy. The area to the south of the Sacred Way - an area that had been a burial ground from Protogeometric times (1050-900 B.C.), if not earlier - continued to be used as such throughout the Classical period. The imposing clusters of late fifth or early fourth century tombs may have been for distinguished Athenians. The area to the west of the Sacred Way (on what is now Piraios Street) was also used for burials in the Classical period. To the north of the Sacred Way was the Thriasian Gate, the gateway for the road to the plain of Eleusis. The neighbourhood just beyond this gate was an important burial ground in the Classical period. It was known as the Dipylos, and it was also the site of public tombs. |
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A large number of graves of the Classical period have been discovered to the north-east of the Kerameikos. These can be assigned to a cemetery which grew up just beyond the Erian Gate. Archaeological research has shown that during the Classical period it was connected to the Kerameikos cemetery by a series of alleys running roughly east-west. Such a street would have had Classical tombs along both sides.
Classical burials have also been found in the area south of the city wall that led to the Acharnai Gate, closer to the Agora and the Acropolis.
On the east side of Themistoclean walls and the Diochares Gate (north-east of what is now Syntagma Square, there is another extensive cemetery. It contains a large group of Classical graves inside circuit walls. Construction work on the new Metro station has uncovered new tombs here.
There was a large number of gates (experts disagree over their names) on the southern section of the Themistoclean wall - the section running south of the Acropolis from the Temple of Olympian Zeus in the east to the present Piraios Street in the west. Evidence from the ancient sources and archaeological finds points to a Classical cemetery that extended beyond the Diomeia Gate, the gateway to the Kynosarges road. Both in the neighbourhood of the Itonian Gate (west of what is now Makrygiannis Street) and also on the road that led south from it towards Phaleron, a large number of Classical graves were found. Classical burials were found further west as well, at the Long Walls and along the river Ilissos. They probably stood on both sides of the road that ran round Philopappos' Hill and left the city by the Halade Gate, at what is now Erechthiou Street. On the far side of the Long Walls, south of the Sacred Gate, there were one or two further gates, but no Classical cemetery has yet come to light in this neighbourhood although grave markers have been found built into the walls.
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