According to Tia Ghose at LiveScience, the area of Phalaeron is a 1-acre cemetery where archaeologists have recovered over 1,500 skeletons. But this most recent group was found in an area being developed for the new National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera.
Two small vases found among the shackled skeletons allowed scientists to date the grave between 650 to 625 B.C., an era that ancient historians say was full of turmoil for Athens. According to AFP, the teeth of the skeletons show that they were from mostly younger people in good health. That boosts the theory that they were political rebels who tried to take over Athens. “These might be the remains of people who were part of this coup in Athens in 632 [B.C.], the Coup of Cylon,” Kristina Killgrove, a bioarchaeologist at the University of West Florida, in Pensacola, not involved in the study tells Ghose.
According to accounts by ancient historians Plutarch and Thucydides, Cylon was an athlete at the 640 B.C. Olympic games. His victory there gave him an elevated status and the hand of the daughter of the nearby tyrant of Megara. Over the next decade, there was discontent in Athens because of poor harvests and social inequality. With the help of his father-in-law's soldiers, Cylon began a coup in 632, hoping the people of Athens would rise up and join him. Some did, but most did not. Instead, Cylon escaped the city and his rebels took shelter in the Acropolis. Eventually they began to starve, and the city archon Megacles promised them safe passage. But when they left the temple, he slaughtered them.
Source: www.thearchaeologist.org
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