This relief fragment with a representation of a handshake comes from an Attic grave stele with a scene of dexiosis (valediction). Such scenes depict the deceased, usually seated but sometimes standing, to whom a standing relative bids farewell. Sometimes, there is a third standing figure, behind or between them. The dexiosis was the commonest iconographic subject in Attic grave reliefs after 430 BC (when the production of such stelai recommenced after the ban on erecting sumptuous funerary monuments imposed by Kleisthenes in 508/7 BC). It is considered to symbolise the valediction of the dead by his relatives, or perhaps the reunion in the Nether World of those whom death had parted. The first suggestion seems more plausible because seated figures are usually shown as elderly, and standing ones as younger. Some researchers maintain that this particular subject was meant to confirm the family ties between the figures portrayed and to emphasise kinship relation at a time when citizenship in Athens was granted only to men born of an Athenian mother to an Athenian father.