“Faliron: Between Two Worlds”, an exhibition showcases some of the most important findings from the salvage excavation the Faliron Necropolis, in the Delta of Faliron Bay, south of Athens, was inaugurated at the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus the weekend.
The salvage excavation on the site where the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center was to be built,, ran between 2012 and 2016, and revealed an extensive cemetery of 1,500 ancient Greek skeletons dating between the 8th and 5th centuries BC.
It also revealed an extraordinary mass grave of 80 skeletons, 36 of which were in shackles.
Exhibition “Falirothen*: Between Two Worlds” is divided into four sections: The first two have main focus on the Attic burial customs, during the early and late archaic period. They focus on the objects that accompanied the deceased, but also on those that were part of the ritual to take care of him on the last journey.
The third section is devoted to Proto-Attic pottery, while the fourth section presents three burials that have been examined from a bio-archaeological perspective. That is, it presents the identity of the people who have been buried and narrates elements of their life story.
The first evidence of the existence of a cemetery in the Faliro Delta is recorded as early as 1864, while at the beginning of the 20th century, two small-scale rescue excavations were carried out in 1911 and 1915. the latter revealed an unorthodox – for the perceptions of the time – finding of the group burial of 18 adults, who were executed by drumming.
Systematically, the area was excavated during the recent construction of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) on the site of the old racecourse.
The exhibition will run until December 31, 2023, and is part of events for the European Days of Cultural Heritage.
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*Falirothen = Coming from Faliro
pictures: Greek Culture Ministry
