[4] Linear B tablets[5] that refer to the keryx mention the office in context with ๐๐๐๐๐ฉ๐ e-ma-a2 (e-ma-ha) a-re-ja,[6] Hermes Areias, meaning either the Warrior, or the Curser (aras).
In Iliad, the Homeric epic, heralds serve heroic nobility in humble tasks, as cooks, fire-kindlers, wine-pourers, and waiters during feasts and symposia, as scavengers of corpses on the battlefield for cremation or as umpires during funeral games, as messengers between enemies, allies, and warriors during battle, as announcers of public assembly and as language translators (hermeneus), and in other odd jobs that earned them the rank of demiourgoi, public workers.
[7] Their ubiquitous yet invisible presence behind the scenes requires concentration, for to understand what they did demands a shift in focus, like watching the black and white striped referees in a football game, rather than the players competing and scoring.
[12] By the archaic period 700-650 BC, Hesiod[13] identifies Hermes with the herald of the Olympian gods that has special control over the daimonic winged Keres in-flight into and out of Demeter Pandora, personified wine-storage jars blamed for all of the ills of humans, where only Hope lingered at the rim.
The burial spot of herald Anthemokritos[14] helps identify the larger grave-mound of the Athenian Kerykes with the massive Tomb 9 along the Eridanos River outside the Dipylon Gate.