Some Classical Athenian graves were surrounded by a four-sided circuit wall; others were arranged into a tomb mound. The mound normally had a circular base of stones containing a mass of earth. Often the monument was plastered over and capped with a gravestone, statue, or pot. If a mound had a fairly large base diameter, it would cover a group of graves; if a fairly small base diameter, it would cover no more than a single grave. There are a number of mounds that were used for more than one generation, and here the dead were obviously members of the same family. (This is also implied by the fact that the earliest of the graves had not been disturbed). Archaeological finds apart, burial mounds are mentioned and described by ancient writers, and also appear on Attic pots.

The cemetery circuit walls of Classical Athens were on a four-sided plan. The side and back walls were rough hewn, but the facade was of ashlar masonry. Cemetery circuit walls could be free-standing structures; but more often they abutted on other similar structures at one or more points. Where the ground was uneven, as in the Kerameikos, some rested on an artificial earth terrace. The graves enclosed by a circuit wall were not inside the monument but underneath it. In certain cases, however, the wall had been in use for hundreds of years and there were graves in the part above ground level. Gravestones were placed along the front elevation, on top of the wall.