Diversities and Inequality: The Male Burials in Early Iron Age Athens

Abstract Burials constitute the main evidence for existence of Athenian society during the Early Iron Age and are distributed all around the Acropolis, in close proximity to the space of the living, within a kinship‑based society. The paper deals with the burials that have been attributed to male individuals on the basis of the anthropological determination of their gender, and highlights those features that can be connected with their rank. The distribution of the weapon burial ritual (centered on the sword bearer) and the weapon ritual (including the killing of the weapon) are discussed in detail. The paper focuses on the Kerameikos evidence and on the gender strategies enacted there. The analysis follows two trajectories: on one hand, a local and generational perspective; on the other hand, within a wide comparative approach, looking to the European prehistory. The main characteristics of the social dimension of burials are investigated in order to discover the strategies of discrimination and distinction enacted with regard to the male members of the Athenian community and to test their durability.