In 2018, Greek archaeologists uncovered the tomb of an ancient noblewoman buried with her gold jewellery on the island of Sikinos.
Her name, according to a tomb inscription, was Neko (Greek: Νεικώ). It remains a mystery who exactly this woman was and what her social status was in the society of Sikinos. The island of Sikinos is located in the Cyclades between the islands of Ios and Folegandros.
The box-shaped tomb was found untouched in the vault of the Episkopi monument, a rare funerary monument from the Roman period, which was later transformed into a Byzantine church and monastery.
Golden bracelets, rings, a long golden necklace, a female figure, a carved cameo buckle, glass and metal vases and fragments of the dead woman’s clothing were also found in the tomb.
Rich jewellery proves ancient Greek was a noblewoman
“The wealth of jewellery worn by the woman shows that she was a prominent figure in Sikinos society,” the Ministry of Culture said in a statement announcing the find.
The well-preserved mausoleum on the tiny island was probably built to protect the tomb, archaeologists said.
“We were unexpectedly lucky,” Dimitris Athanassoulis, director of the Cyclades antiquities department, told Reuters at the time. “This is Neko’s mausoleum.”
“It’s very rare. A monument, one of the most impressive in the Aegean, has an identity,” he added. “We now have the person for whom the building was built, we have her remains, her name.”
Experts believed that 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,” said Athanassoulis. “We are still at the beginning.”
Despite attacks by tomb raiders in ancient times and the building’s various uses over the centuries, Neko’s tomb was found intact, largely because it was well hidden in a blind spot between two walls in the basement of the building.
Archaeologists have been digging in Greece for ages, often uncovering long-hidden treasures and reminders of how people lived, including their vanity and desire for possessions such as jewellery, of which many have been discovered among the antiquities.
Recently, Greek archaeologist Polina Sapouna Ellis told the New York Times that discovering the remains of women still wearing their precious jewellery was what moved her most.
“I’ve seen bodies with gold jewellery, and you realise how important jewellery was to them. It was like a part of the body,” she says. “Gold is precious, it’s lasting. Gold is what survives.
