The Kerameikos of Athens
Graham Shipley meets the dead in a Greek cemetery - an oasis of classicism in modern Athens.
When you are next in Athens, having duly paid your respects to the Parthenon, take the path leading down to the north, into the ancient 'agora' or marketplace. There you will be able to trace the outlines of the ancient civic buildings, though it takes a bit of imagination.
The Agora, like the centre of any Greek city, was not a secular space: it has a sacred boundary, it is watched over by the temple of Hephaistos (the best-preserved temple in Greece) and it straddles the ancient Sacred Way leading down from the Acropolis. Many visitors, content with a brief review of the religious and political heart of ancient Athens, turn back into the modern centre in search of refreshment and souvenirs; but where does the Sacred Way go when it emerges from the Agora?
To find out, you can take a short detour to a very pleasant archaeological site, and one that stimulates the imagination rather more than the Agora.
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