On December 17, the Central Archaeological Council (KAS) unanimously approved the study for the restoration of the Kasta Tomb burial monument and enclosure.
The aim is to expedite the work at Kasta Tomb, in Amphipolis, Serres, so by the beginning of 2022, the archaeological site may be accessible to special groups of visitors (5-6 visitors per group could visit the burial site.
Στις 17 Δεκεμβρίου εγκρίθηκε ομόφωνα από το Κεντρικό Αρχαιολογικό Συμβούλιο (ΚΑΣ) η μελέτη για την αποκατάσταση του ταφικού μνημείου και του περιβόλου, του Τύμβου Καστά.
Ο στόχος είναι να επισπευθούν οι εργασίες τον Τύμβο Καστά, στην Αμφίπολη Σερρών, ουτωσώστε από τις αρχές του 2022 ο αρχαιολογικός χώρος να μπορεί να είναι επισκέψιμος για ειδικές ομάδες κοινού, ώστε 5-6 επισκέπτες ανά ομάδες να επισκέπτονται το ταφικό μνημείο.
SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2019 · 2 MINUTES READ By Konstantinos Kottis
A basic interpretative proposition of the excavation team on Kastas hill near Amphipolis is that the monument was one of Hephaestion Heroons. However, we have no source indicating or other evidences that Hephaestion receive heroic or divine honours in the region of Amphipolis, a great city that controlled until 316 BC by the mother of the Great Alexander queen Olympias, through her partner and governor of the city Aristonus. We know that this city have offered divine honours to Philip II (359-336). The same city has got monuments for the two of its founders, the homeric’s first founder Rhesus and the 2nd founder, the Spartan general Brassidas. Finally, we know that the Amphipolis region has got two famous tumuli, the great tumulus of Phyllis and the Biton’s Heroon.
About Biton’s Heroon, Nicaenetus refers in a tomb epigram:
(Epigram of Nicaenetus, Παλατινή Ἀνθολογία, VIΙ, «Ἐπιτύμβια», 502, in Anthologia graeca ad palatini codicis fidem edita, I (Lipsiae: C. Tauchnit, 1819), 338.Translation: “Oh Traveler! I am the Heroon who they dedicated to Biton. If you leaving from Torone of Halkidiki to comest to Amphipolis, tell to Nicagoras that the Strymonian wind at the star setting of the Eriphi’ (at the middle of September) was the sunset (death) of his only son.”
Nicaenetos who wrote this epigram lived in the 3rd century BC at the island of Samos but originated from the Abdera of Thrace. He therefore refers to a Heroon dating since 3rd century BC and earlier ( ; ), at a time when the holy monument of Kastas΄Hill and tomb near of Amphipolis still works and has not been seized by the Romans.
Marble votive relief with presentation of Dioscuri and god-river Strymon, Hellenic Art of Roman period, Archaeological Museum of Amphipolis