Sleeping girl at the 1st Cemetery of Athens

A haunting trek through Greece’s most famous cemetery

The First Cemetery of Athens is like an open-air sculpture museum. Perhaps the most iconic works at the cemetery is the statue that adorns the tomb of Sophia Afentaki, a daughter of a well-known family from the island of Kimolos that was born in 1855 and died from tuberculosis in 1873 at the age of 18 years. She gained immortality thanks to the sculpture of Yiannoulis Chalepas showing her lying in repose. CLICK HERE for more graves at the First Cemetery of Athens.