Iranians and Greeks in South Russia - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian ...

I70 GREEK CITIES OF SOUTH RUSSIA
the body was enclosed in a wooden coffin or a stone sarcophagus and
deposited in the tomb. The walls of the trench sometimes have a
revetment of dressed stone, and dressed stone is used for roof and
floor. I know very few certain examples of cremation : inhumation
is the rule. The trench was covered with a small mound which was
topped by a carved and painted stele. These stelai mostly belong
to the first century a. d., some to the second, none, as far as I know, to
the third. Nearly all the stelai were used again, and have been found
embodied in funeral structures of the second and third centuries.
There are slight variants of this type : I shall not discuss them.
The second type of grave was introduced in the latter half
of the third century B. c, but is rare in the Hellenistic period : it
appears to be of Pontic origin. In the soft rock on the chain of
Mount Mithridates at Panticapaeum, or in the clay elsewhere, a tomb
chamber was cut, sometimes with double berths, both berths cut in
the rock or clay. The chambers were approached by a shaft, sometimes
very deep, and a corridor. The bodies were placed in the berths,
often enclosed in wooden coffins. The graves are always family graves
and were frequently re-employed.
coated with stucco and painted.
The walls of the tombs were often
The third type takes up the old Spartocid tradition : monumental
tumulary chambers, of dressed stone, with barrel vaults. They are
often sculptured without and painted within. These also were
family graves, belonging to Bosphoran aristocrats. We know the
occupants of some of them. The dead were laid in wooden coffins,
in sarcophagi of dressed stone, or in hermetically sealed sarcophagi.
All these types of tomb must have been very costly and show
that the inhabitants were wealthy. The same types appear in the
cemeteries of the other Greek cities on the Black Sea ;
the tumulary
graves at Olbia more than elsewhere, but fewer and less rich than on
the Bosphorus.
The funerary ritual is everywhere the same as before. In all three
types, the tomb furniture is astonishingly rich and varied. Unhappily,
the tumulary and chamber graves have almost always been
pillaged, and it is only the trenches that are usually found intact. The
dead were furnished with everything that might be useful in the other
world. Garments ; mortuary crowns ; jewels ; baskets of fruit,
especially nuts ;
baskets of eggs, the funerary significance of which
is well known ; toilet boxes ; terra-cottas, often quaint representations
of strange beings, probably evil geniuses— perhaps personifications
of diseases—like those found in contemporary Chinese graves ; toys
and games, for instance a complete set of duodecim scripta ; coins ;