Kasta Tomb
About
A retaining wall nearly 500 meters around enclosed the largest burial mound ever found in Macedonia, a tumulus more than 30 meters high built for an unidentified aristocrat in the turbulent years after Alexander the Great's death. Two headless marble sphinxes and a pair of caryatid-like female figures guarded chambers decorated with a mosaic of Persephone's abduction by Pluto. Romans later dismantled sections of its outer wall for building stone, but left the sealed mound itself intact for another two thousand years.
What happened here
Roman burial is a family matter conducted in public. The dead are carried out of town, cremated or laid in the ground, and mourned with formal noise; the funeral of anyone important is a procession with masks of the ancestors carried by hired men. The tomb that follows is designed to be read by strangers on the road: name, age, offices, sometimes a trade shown in relief, often a line addressed directly to the passer-by. Ordinary people appear here as they nowhere else — a baker with his ovens carved on the front, a freedman naming the woman he could finally marry, a child's age given in days. Anniversaries bring the family back with food and wine.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →