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Her
name, according to a burial inscription, was Neko - or Νεικώ
using the Greek alphabet.
The box-shaped grave was found untouched in the vault of the
Episkopi monument, a rare burial memorial of the Roman era,
which was later turned into a Byzantine church and a monastery.
Golden wristbands, rings, a long golden necklace, a female
figure carved cameo buckle, glass and metal vases and fragments
of the dead woman's clothes were found in the grave.
The well-preserved mausoleum on the tiny island, in the Cycladic
group southeast of Athens, was likely to have been constructed
to shelter the grave, archaeologists said.
"We were unexpectedly lucky," Director of the Ephorate of
Antiquities of Cyclades Dimitris Athanassoulis told Reuters on
Monday. "This is Neko's mausoleum."
"It's very rare. A monument, one of the Aegean's most
impressive, has got an identity. We now have the person for whom
the building was built, we have her remains, her name."
Despite attacks by grave robbers in ancient times and the
building's various uses through the centuries, Neko's grave was
found intact mainly because it was well hidden in a blind spot
between two walls at the basement of the building, Athanassoulis
said.
He said that experts thought Neko had links to the island but it
was not clear whether she was actually from Sikinos.
"We are now trying to find out more about her," he said. "We are
still at the beginning."
(Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Alison Williams)
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