Salamis sea-battle tumulus

Burial mounds in Greece are of several ages. At Marathon, the Soros is the burial mound of the Athenians who fell in the battle of 490 BCE, which holds the ashes of 192 of them; the Plataeans who fought alongside them were buried in a second, smaller tumulus nearby. The Athenian mound stands about 12 metres high and was excavated in 1884 by Dimitrios Philios and again in 1890 and 1891 by Valerios Stais; the Plataean mound, about 3 metres high, was identified and excavated in 1970. A large layer of ash and charred bone was found in the Athenian tumulus, while the Plataeans were inhumed. Such monumental burial had been out of fashion in central Greece since the seventh century BCE, so the choice at Marathon was unusual. Further down this page, About this kind of monument gives the whole of “Greek tumuli and Macedonian burial mounds”.

No date has been recorded for this site, and the Atlas does not guess one. Where a regional range exists for this kind of monument it is given in the notes on this page, as background and not as a date for this site.