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Volume 99 No. 4
October 1995
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Tomb Marker and Turning Post: Funerary Columns in the Archaic Period
Elizabeth P. McGowan
Freestanding columns marked tombs throughout Greece in the Archaic period. The Homeric phrasing of hexametric funerary epigrams on some columns suggests that the columnar tomb marker was meant to evoke the Age of Heroes. The choice of the column as a funerary marker may have broader significance. Greek vases show isolated Doric, Ionic, and plain columns as turning posts or goals in horse-, chariot-, and footraces. Allusions to races in the epigrams on two funerary columns, one from Troezen, the other from the Argive Heraion, suggest that tomb columns were also meant to call to mind turning posts on stadia and hippodromes. The Heraion inscription indicates that great honor was associated with burial near the racecourse. Earlv literary evidence for the possible use of a tomb as turning post is found in Homer's account of the funeral games of Patroclus in the Iliad. Later authors also report heroes buried in or on stadia and hippodromes. The columnar tomb marker may reflect the desire of the family of the deceased to associate itself with the heroes of epic, and also with contemporary aristocrats who could afford the time and leisure to raise horses and compete in athletic games.
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