Death in ancient Greek art

The theme of death within ancient Greek art has continued from the Early Bronze Age all the way through to the Hellenistic period.

Opheltes' death elevated him above the status of other humans and made him more divine, and thus his final resting place became a sacred space to Greeks.

The ancient Greeks would use this space and the surrounding land to host the Nemean Games in Opheltes' honor, as well as practice magic and other cult activities.

They were for wealthy people and families that served to remind the living of the power and wealth of the dead by exhibiting conspicuous consumption.

The tombs at Xanthos, Lycia, are funerary architecture that display the cultural synthesis enacted by a Lycian Dynasty.

The decorative motifs surrounding many of the elevated burial chambers depicts Near Eastern imagery, with roots in Persia.

After Brasidas died, the people of Amphipolis monumentalized him by cremating him, placing his ashes in a silver ossuary with a gold wreath, and burying him in a cist grave within the city walls.

His legacy was remembered and celebrated with these things and contributes to the theme of monumentalization of important Greek figures after death.

Elpenor had drunkenly fallen off the roof of a boat and his death went unnoticed which means he did not get his burial rights and could not proceed through his journey in the underworld.

The amphora's decoration reflects the pottery of the Orientalizing period (c. 710–600 BCE), a style in which human and animal figures depict mythological scenes.

Ancient Greek funerary vases were made to resemble vessels used for elite male drinking parties, called symposiums.

After the interment process, the death would often be commemorated[3] by the family through a large custom-made funerary vase that would at times portray the dead's current pathway through the underworld.

Side A of the krater depicts Homer's story of Odysseus's visit to the Underworld to consult the dead seer Teiresias.

The prothesis was a public "laying out" of the deceased similar to a modern wake, and the ekphora was a transportation of the body to the grave for burial.

These scenes could potentially indicate a desire for display and conspicuous consumption and hint at the presence of warfare and social stratification at Mycenae.