eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

Fig.5.3: views from the site of ancient Stymphalos across the lake to West (photos: author).
This myth has obvious connotations with death and, by association, so does the plain of
Stymphalos. What is interesting here though is not just that in the myth the birds killed men
and beasts (and presumably women as well), but that they also devoured the flesh of their
victims. One way this happens in reality is through the burial rite of excarnation, where an
exposed body would be picked at by birds and other creatures. The practise of this rite has
been suggested by Dickinson (1994, p.208) as one reason why the numbers of burials for the
LBA are lower than what might be expected. It is also possible that some of the secondary
burials in chamber tombs and tholos tombs could have been placed after being exposed
(Cavanagh 1978). It could be that this burial rite was embodied and recalled in the Herakleian
myth. At one time, it may have been the case that the plain of Stymphalos had a particular
connection and involvement with death and dealing with the dead.
Approximately 1 km to the north east of Lafka, a village at the western end of the plain of
Stymphalia, is a gulley and in it is a built structure (Map 5.1, Fig. 5.4 & 5.5 (5)). There are
two possibilities as to what it could be; a 19th century kiln or, most likely, a Bronze Age
tholos tomb (Hector Williams, pers. comm.; Michopoulou 2004, p.41). If it is a tholos tomb
then its setting must be highly significant, chosen precisely because of the characteristics of
the landscape in which it is set, seemingly hidden away and difficult to find without local
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