Archaeologists Thought a Mass Grave of 79 Shackled Men Held Foreign Invaders. They Were Wrong

Image: Excavation of the mass burial at Phaleron Necropolis, showing men with their hands bound by iron shackles. Image credit: Giannis Asvestas, Hellenic Ministry of Culture. © Bérard, R.-M., & Castex, D., Athens Journal of History (2021). CC BY-NC 4.0 (resized to fit). Article by Margherita Bassi. Gizmodo – August 11, 2026.

In 2016, archaeologists in Athens uncovered an Ancient Greek mass grave full of men buried in a heartbreakingly vulnerable position: with their wrists shackled and raised over their heads. We now have a better sense of who they were. Researchers conducted isotopic analyses on 66 men from the so-called Esplanada grave, which dates back to the Archaic Period (~700 to 460 BCE), and discovered something surprising—most were from the surrounding region of Attica. In other words, they were locals, according to a study published last month in the Journal of Archaeological Science. […]

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