The layout we adopted for the book is such that, as we hope, it presents the testimonies in the most user-friendly way. A significant part is dedicated to the burial customs of Athens and Attica.
This was done because the Attic cemeteries are the most well-known and best published across all periods, and all related representations of vessels come from Athens, with literary testimony primarily focusing on Athens. The coherence of this description would have been seriously weakened if the very different and less complete testimonies from the rest of Greece were examined together with it. However, this resulted in the archaeological testimonies rather dominating the early chapters.
The non-specialist reader can begin to recognize the Athens of historians, poets, and famous works of art solely through the chapters of the Archaic and Classical periods. In the second part of the book, testimonies from Greece outside Attica are examined more based on the subject rather than the period, always with a summarizing reference to Attica. Here, it is possible to see some aspects of the subject from a broader perspective, such as offerings at graves, art, epigrams, and historical problems.
Topographically, we have limited ourselves to the Aegean and selectively to the more remote kingdoms of the Hellenistic world. Greece outside Attica is treated less in detail than Athens, while the Greek colonies are summarized and always in comparison to the customs of the homeland. The Notes are mainly bibliographical and supplemented by a Select Geographic Dictionary of cemeteries outside Attica.
The first part of the book is mainly due to Dr. Kurtz. A more detailed report on some topics will be published in her study on the white lekythoi from Athens. The second part of the book is primarily due to Mr. Boardman, but there was extensive collaboration in the final preparation of all chapters.
The subject is vast and now requires various specialized studies. We hope that we have shown how enlightening it can be. We also hope that excavators will engage with the cemeteries, treating them as more than just bones, vessels, and jewelry: the main obstacles to this study were incomplete excavations and insufficient publication. We apologize for the omissions and generalizations: in a book of this kind, they are inevitable.
[Excerpt from the introduction text]
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