Honouring the Dead in the Peloponnese - University of Nottingham

Archaic funerary and votive jewellery
and inflexible for such use. 2 In general terms, the Argive Geometric graves
contain various types of jewellery, such as simple rings found distributed at
the level of the hands and on the pelvis – a similar phenomenon is to be noted
at Mycenae and Berbati. 3 Second to the rings, the most frequent type is gold
fistulae, which held the women’s tresses and framed their faces. They are
fund only in female graves, with parallels from Tiryns, Protogeometric
Athens and in Kleonai in Corinth. 4 In addition, we find biconical beads,
sometimes gold-plated, which would be threaded on a cord of perishable
material (usually leather) or which would form the head of a wooden pin. 5
There are also examples of bone or faience, indicating commercial relations
between Argos and its neighbours within and without the Peloponnese. 6 A
cist grave burial contained a number of vases, among which lay the fixing
plate and pins for fibulae, either with a sphere and cruciform ends, or with a
leaf-like finial – a rather rare variation. 7
FIG. 1. Pair of gold earrings, Argos, 875–825 BC.
2
Despini 1996, 220 fig. 48.
3 For Mycenae cf. Coldstream 2003, 36 and 16; for Berbati cf. Stockholm Stud. Class. Archaeol. 4,
81 ff.
4 Davidson 1952, 250 n. 1999, pl. 107 and 250 n. 2000, pl. 107. For a case of an early-geometric
grave at Karameikos cemetery, cf. AA 1938, 597 fig. 11.
5
One such pin with a gold-plated head was found in the wall of tomb 21 at Pronias. Note the
finds in sanctuaries (Dawkins 1929, 386; Dekoulakou 1973, 16), but also outside the borders of
the Peloponnese, as in Lindos (Blinkenberg 1931, 93 n. 151 pl. 10) and Ephesus (Hogarth 1908,
203 pl. XLV 7–9, 12–14, 16, 18).
6
Courbin 1974, 118.
7
Archaiologikon Deltion 18 (1963) Β1, 57–59 pl. 71 γ–ε.
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