The Polyandrion of the Sacred Band – Drawing of the skeletons

This is a drawing of the 252 skeletons and the two cremations, as found lined up in rows in the Polyandrion of Theban members of the Sacred Band and recorded with great care and accuracy by the excavator of the monument Panagiotis Stamatakis in his diaries (1880). Stamatakis described in detail all the skeletons he excavated during his work at the site and accompanied his description with the exact drawing of each member of the Sacred Band.

The knowledge of anatomy that he acquired during his studies at the Medical School of the University of Athens, as well as his meticulous method, have preserved to this day the information about the position of the dead warriors of the Sacred Band in the Polyandrion. The assemblage of the skeletons was made by © Markley Boyer.

In the present exhibition, the original diaries of Panagiotis Stamatakis are displayed in the section “The archaeological rediscovery of the battle”. They are kept at the Ministry of Culture, Directorate for the Management of the National Monuments Archive, Historical Archive of Antiquities and Restoration.