This article examines ‘embodied objects’ in relation to Classical grave-stelai, produced in Athens between the late fifth and late fourth centuries BCE. Situated above family tombs, stelai probe the problem of transforming bodily loss into physical manifestation: they materialize questions about the ontology of the dead – about what the dead are, were, or have ceased to be. The article begins by exploring Greek attitudes towards the dead, before attempting a brief survey of the history and scholarly historiography of Attic funerary memorials. It then homes in on some Classical examples, teasing out a number of recurring visual tropes. Fundamental to the ontological play of grave-stelai, I argue, is the ‘interdimensional’ space of relief, existing between three-dimensional plasticity and two-dimensional surface. As present monuments to the absence of the deceased, Classical stelai frame the dead in an inherently ambiguous realm: the very medium of relief situates the figural subjects in a representational field related to but removed from the bodily dimensions of the living. Keywords:grave-stelai; relief sculpture; art and death; eidôlon; Classical art; Athens; Kallithea Monument<br/
