The double cremation burial within the urban insulae: heroon of archaic Borysthenes?

During the excavations of an Archaic period settlement on the Berezan island in the mouth of the Dnieper-Bug silted estuary in 1970 an important find was made that was not given due consideration. The expedition of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences led by V. V. Lapin discovered a double cremation burial. Two Ionian vessels (Fig. 3) used as urns with ashes and an Attic footed cup that was used as a lid of one of these vessels suggest that the burial dates to the end of the 6th c. BC or the end of the 6th – early 5th cc. BC. Understanding the burial context is hampered by poor preservation conditions of archaic buildings debris which were mostly pulled down during construction of a group of buildings in the 4th c. BC. However, it has been found that the double burial was located at a long distance from the necropolis in the central part of the city blocks, only 18 m away from the public building, the so called house with an apse (Fig. 2). Maybe, a heroon was located there. The burials uncovered by V. V. Lapin probably belonged to one of the colonists’ leaders who had founded this urban settlement on the Berezan island several decades before, i.e. in the early third quarter of the 6th c. BC. Chronologically the double cremation burial almost coincides with the replacement of construction phases II-A and II-B according to the Berezan settlement periodization. The end of construction phases II-A was marked by fires, collapse of buildings and subsequent rebuilding traced in various parts of the site. We cannot exclude that the death of two individuals buried not far from the house with the apse was also linked to this disaster by factors not yet identified.