The Tombs

Abstract

Tomb I (Plan, Fig. 2; Plate 49b). This was the original tomb whose collapse led to the discovery of the cemetery. It was also apparently the earliest in point of time, containing four clay vases (1–4) decorated in a fine style which may go back before the destruction of the Last Palace. The main chamber was more or less rectangular (L. 1·90, W. about 2·50), approached by a level dromos (L. 3·00, W. 0·85–90), on the left side of which was a walled recess (L. 1·78, W. 0·75) exactly like the chamber in graves of the pit-cave type as found in the Zafer Papoura cemetery (PT 15 f., and fig. 11a, b). The dromos was entered by an unusually steep ramp descending at an angle of nearly 45 degrees.The tomb was quite intact and unplundered. But the roof of the main chamber had partly collapsed, together with the top of the entrance, so that the upper part of the blocking wall had fallen into the chamber. The solitary burial had been contained in a wooden coffin, set against the south wall of the chamber, of which traces survived together with some indications of the blue paint with which it had been decorated (Plate 49b). The dusky patch indicating the decayed wood of the coffin lay above the floor of the tomb to a depth of between 5 and 10 centimetres over an area of about L. 1·50 m. and W. 0·50 m. The coffin traces began immediately on the floor over most of the area where they occurred, but in some places they were a little above it.