Inscribed pithoid amphora. Mid 7th century BC

The vase was excavated at the cemetery of ancient Akanthos in the eastern part of the Chaklidike peninsula, where it had been used for an infant jar burial.

Its decoration was executed exclusively with the technique of incision, which is a rather rare phenomenon. On one side, on the neck, a deer is depicted grazing, while the shoulder of the vase bears patterns with three-petal palmettes. On the shoulder of the other side of the vase an inscription was incised, ΚΕΜΕΛΙΟΝ, written from right to left.

The inscription is quite interesting. It was written in an alphabet combining both Cycladic and Euboean characters, thus indicating the mixed composition of Akanthos, which, according to Plutarch, was a common colony of settlers coming from Andros and Chalkis (in Euboea). It was incised on the vase after its firing and is dated to the 6th century BC. The noun ΚΕΜΕΛΙΟΝ=heirloom means generally the object of the relatively near past which is thought of as valuable for historical and emotional reasons and is kept as a souvenir. The word occurs in the Iliad and the Odyssey for the first time, while this particular inscription from Akanthos is its oldest inscribed attestation.

In the case of the Akanthian pithoid amphora, the word refers to the vase itself, characterizing it as heirloom. It was probably in the possession of a family group, who after having kept it for several decades, they decided at some point to use it for the burial of one of its beloved members, an infant, and to state with the writing of the particular inscription the value, historical and emotional, of the object that was intended to accompany the deceased to the journey into the Underworld.