I never promised you a rose garden

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system1988
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 739
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2011 11:20 am
Location: Athens, Greece

I never promised you a rose garden

Post by system1988 »

In 1911 a large 7th BC cemetery was found in Palaio (Old) Phaliron. In the summer of 1915 with the resuming of the excavations the following tomb

http://s1246.beta.photobucket.com/user/ ... s%20garden

was discovered (but, itself, not dated back to the 7th BC). 17 or 18 skeletons were found because there were missing bones from one and other bones that did not match with any. As one could easily realize, this finding is critical but not one that one would find often in published material. Many fantasize classical ancient Greece as something near perfection. The fact of matters is that Athens was a living and thriving society and all this is a testament of how their law enforcement systems operated.

The skeletons were attached to a plank with iron clamps (it shows in a photo) around their wrists, ankles, and the neck. Traces of the woodwork are still on the iron clamps. There weren't any dedicative coins or vases and the tomb is dated back to either the 5th or the 4th BC depending on the archaeologist (back then). It is evident that this is a testament of the practice of the death penalty via αποτυμπανισμός. Three were all the kinds of death penalty's in acnient Athens: 1) Drop from a cliff 2) The Coneion (Socrates) and 3) The αποτυμπανισμος which by the way was considered to be the harshest of the 3.

Litteral testaments on the matter we can find on Aristophanes "Thesmophoriazouse" (verses 930-1165), Plato "Politeia" Z, 514 and Plutarch "Perikles" when he narrates of how Perikles cut the heads of the Samian generals who had suffered the αποτυμπανισμος.

In the case in question, since one body was pierced by an arrow and the other have suffered considerable injury, we can hypothesize that they were hanged while already dead. The first digger suggests that they may have been Laurion slaves or pirates and comes to the conclusion (in the end) that the remains were in fact Atheninan citizens who were sentenced on charges of great desecration after them cutting the Ermes (Sicilian campaign- Alkibiades)

From Α.Δ Volume 2 , 1916 Σ. Πελεκίδης and ΒΑΕ 1923 Α. Κεραμόπουλος


Funny note: The tomb is actually in the area where my office's building currently stands!
Last edited by system1988 on Sun May 29, 2016 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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hiphys
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Re: I never promised you a roses garden

Post by hiphys »

Really amazing and frightful! I knew very well of the 'apotympanismos', but it's entirely another thing to see actual bodies of men so punished. Thanks for reminding us how harsh may be 'dear old times'!
system1988
Hetairos (companion)
Posts: 739
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2011 11:20 am
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: I never promised you a roses garden

Post by system1988 »

hiphys wrote:Really amazing and frightful! I knew very well of the 'apotympanismos', but it's entirely another thing to see actual bodies of men so punished. Thanks for reminding us how harsh may be 'dear old times'!

The αποτυμπανισμός , from what I have read, was harsher than crucifying. In the last, the sentenced could die relatively easy from bleeding while in the first case the sentenced (should It rained and one could drink water) could last even for 10 days. I won't go into detail about the torments one could face while sentenced in that particular manner. Indescribebable.

A kind of "torment", as far as I am concerned, was reading the 1916 and 1923 text! After 100 years the language, any language will change and sometimes I had to go through second and third readings to get the gist of it. Up until 1990 (i think), the Greek language held the intonations and various stresses. It was after the State's legislation and to keep the language in sync with pc technology, the various stresses were abolished in public texting and education. Only 1 stress was kept.
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