Death, throughout antiquity was treated with anguish and awe. Caring for the departed was a sacred duty carried out by their loved ones who honoured them and procured all essentials for their final voyage.

The oldest burials in the area of the excavation appear in Mycenaean time. They are mostly women, infants, or children’s burials, the community members that were most susceptible to sickness and death. The deceased are buried in clay vessels and pits -sometimes with lined walls- and accompanied with pots, jewellery and toys.

After the Mycenaean world collapsed around 1100 BC, and until the middle of the 8th century BC, the area is used exclusively for burial purposes. This same period the custom of cremation appears as well. Cremations found in the excavation, like the one exhibited here, are secondary. The body of a thirty-year-old woman was burned in an unknown location and her ashes were placed in the amphora with another vessel (skyphos) being used as a lid. The amphora was then buried in a pit in the area of the excavation, together with offerings that accompanied the deceased.