The Ceramicus and the northwestern part of urban Athens

The present project is meant to continue and expand the scope of the project entitled "Testimonia on the Athenian Kerameikos: Texts and Analysis" (project number P17117-G02 - headed by Prof. P. Siewert). The preceding project and its continuation applied for here aim at presenting in text and translation the great wealth in reports in ancient literature and inscriptions on the Kerameikos district and neighbouring regions, at commenting these reports and inscriptions, and, subsequently, at their use in gaining insights into Athenian topography, urban development and the history of everyday life. The area of research includes not only the Kerameikos in the narrower sense, but also a more broadly defined area in the north-western part of the city. The close scrutiny of the testimonies, however, did show beyond doubt that the Kerameikos area in the narrower sense (the roadside site) was functionally, structurally and historically tightly linked to the surrounding areas. Therefore the necessary cuts in the originally much broader object of investigation do result in gaps, which become especially relevant when a synopsis of the attestations on overlapping topics (cults and festivals, prostitution, trade and industry, traffic, etc.) is attempted. Hence the first aim of the successor project is to fill these gaps and to study and publish the testimonies on the missing areas of the Kerameikos and on the vicinity of north-western Athens, especially the sacred road and the places Skiron, Butadai, Lakiadai, Akademeia, and Kolonos Hippios, taking into consideration archaeological results, in the same way as has already been achieved with regard to the "inner Kerameikos". As a second step it is planned to subject the then ordered and edited attestations to a close scrutiny under a variety of different aspects: topography, social history, urban history, history of religion etc. These analytical studies based on Kerameikos attestations are planned to be collected and published in a volume (working title "Studies on Athen`s Kerameikos"), together with a number of other essays that are planned to originate in a international conference of experts on this subject. The conference is planned at the end of the proposed project.

The project `The Kerameikos and the north-western part of the city of Athens` is meant to continue and expand the previous project entitled `Testimonia on the Athenian Kerameikos: Texts und Analysis`, headed by Prof. P. Siewert, whose results have been already published (C. Ruggeri, P. Siewert, I. Steffelbauer, Die antiken Schriftzeugnisse über den Kerameikos von Athen, Teil I: Der innere Kerameikos, Wien 2007). With this continuation the remaining written sources about the Kerameikos district, situated in the north-western part of the ancient city of Athens, are analyzed as in the first volume and prepared for the publication in a second volume. The area of research of this second project is the representative roadside site of Kerameikos and the areas along its fringes and their buildings, from the district of the Dipylon gate, which is situated inside the city walls, to the area of the Akademeia- Gymnasium, about 2 km outside the city. Outside the city walls the road led through the suburb and its cemeteries (such as the well-known Athenians` state cemetery), gardens and the suburban settlements. The project aims at presenting in text and translation the great wealth in reports in ancient literature and inscriptions on the Kerameikos district and neighbouring regions, at commenting these reports and inscriptions, and, subsequently, at their use in interpreting the archaeological findings, in gaining insights into our knowledge of the topography, urban development, religious history and history of everyday life of this special district of Athens. For this reason the written sources are not only used to get informations about objects und places (in the chapters `Sanctuaries`, `Public buildings`, `Statues and paintings`, `Horoi`, `Trade and shops`, `Houses`, `Roadways`, `Cemetery and graves`), but the informations about processes, activities and events in Kerameikos in the chapters `Ritual practices` (processions, festivals and games), `Education`, `Leisure time`, `Prostitution` and `Historical events` are also systematically analyzed. Testimonies referring to the same object, process or event are ordered in the chronological sequence of their composition. Their chronological scope ranges from the sources from the 5th c. BC to the latest references in late Byzantine lexicons. With literary testimonies special attention was paid in distinguishing between the time that text was composed in and the sometimes not identical time of its description. Similarly in the case of inscriptions was distinguished between the location where they were found and the original place of their installation. Moreover the particularly important topographic testimony of the inscriptions found in situ has been underlined. The chronological order, especially the synchronous juxtaposition of contemporaneous literary and epigraphic testimonies, will create an important and more complete imagine of the life in Kerameikos. The chronological construction makes it possible to follow at the same time the social and the urban development of a district of Athens from the archaic times to the Late Antiquity.