Abstract:

The extensive necropolises of the Aeolian metropolis of Cyme are today located mainly on industrial land. In the past few years some of them have been opened in emergency excavations conducted by the museum of Izmir. In 2012 the two necropolises 877 and 879 locat­ed some 1.5 km east of the city were excavated too; they were in use from approx. the 4th cen­­tury BC until well into the High Empire and today belong to the cadastral area of the village of Samurlu. In these necropolises ten Hellenistic funerary steles with inscriptions have been found among other things; they are of inter­est particularly because of their onomastic content: No. 1 contains the hitherto unattested name Diony­siketes. Other steles mention rare female na­mes such as Perigenea (no. 2), Boulonoe (no. 3) and Lamp­ris (no. 10). The two necropolises, which were set up off the main highways, appear to have been used mainly by middle and lower-class citizens, which is suggested by the plain design of both the steles and the tombs as well as by the fact that most of the tombs are without grave-goods. 

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