The Greek word for “grave” that Elpenor uses when he asks Odysseus to “heap up a grave” for him is sêma. The word can mean “grave” or “tomb,” but that’s only a secondary meaning: the primary meaning is “sign” or “signal,” a meaning that survives in the English word “semiotics,” which refers to the study of signs and symbols, to the philosophical theory of how meaning itself is generated. As far as the Greeks who
