The second cist grave (Tombˆ), like its predecessor, was a stone box
with a painted interior, of slightly smaller dimensions (1.21 m x 0.87 m x
0.70 m). This time the decoration consisted of a white background with a
red frieze. The bones of the second man were probably placed in a metal
box. Again, most of the information about the associated grave goods
comes from the remains of a pyre. There was another collection of
polychromehydriai, perhapsfifteen, as well as some painted pottery
(of the kind more usually associated with women’s burials: four oilflasks,
a jug, and anamphoriskos), a silverkalyxcup, three iron swords, the butt
of a sarissa, two spear heads, nine javelins, fragments of a horse bit,
multiple iron strigils, two silver and at least four iron pins, a gilded
bronze myrtle wreath, and the iron lid of a leather vessel. In addition,
there were fragments of a bronze wreath of oak leaves; attachments,
perhaps made of ivory, for a wooden box; ivory attachments for a bed,
and clay gilded terracotta reliefs. Perhaps a man and a woman were
buried here. A third man, around 35 years old, was later buried in a pit
grave that was inserted into the composite mound. His body was laid on
a wooden bed, with a spearhead, an iron sword with a silver foil-
decorated handle, an iron knife, two strigils, and a gilded bronze wreath.
This man had evidently been a horseman for much of his life. The
mound fill contained horse’s teeth, while the pyre associated with
Tombˆyielded dog, goat, and sheep bones.
Despite the looting of the Stenomakri tumulus, the quantities of
hardware concealed in the three identifiable graves is astonishing, par-
ticularly when compared with the vast majority of burials of this date
from central and southern Greece, where grave goods were generally
modest.^24 The tendency to mortuary modesty is also sometimes apparent
in the north, when we compare the 405 graves excavated at Akanthos
withflat cemeteries at Aiani, or Archondiko, near Pella. Just over 40 per
cent of the graves at Akanthos had some goods and, notwithstanding the
city’s manifest levels of wealth, there was a very limited range of largely
ceramic items, in striking contrast to the frequent and varied grave goods
in the Macedonian and Thracian interior. Similarly, at Apollonia Pontika
there is a complete absence of arms, a dearth of any metal objects, and a
(^24) Morris 1992, 118 (on Athenian burials of thefifth and fourth centuriesbc):‘It is
not just that precious metals are virtually absent from burials; pottery too was used
sparingly.... I would suggest that we should not see pots as symbolic substitutes for
more valuable materials, but on the contrary should take the buriers’parsimony as having a
positive message about abstention from display.’Cf. Morris 1992, 123–5, on the infre-
quency of metal and ceramic artefacts in domestic contexts, and the reluctance to parade
wealth in Athens; 174–99 for a nuanced analysis of family graves at Vroulia, Rhodes.
310 Continuity and commemoration