This sarcophagus was found in 1889 in a tomb near Capranica, a modern municipality about 40 miles to the northwest of Rome, not far from the ancient town of Sutrium (modern Sutri) on the Via Cassia. It contained the skeleton of a middle-aged man. Today it is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (90.12).
The case of the sarcophagus is made of Luni marble, while the lid is of Pentelic marble and is narrower that the case. This mismatch may be the result of the use of marble blocks originally intended for other purposes. It is less likely that a finished lid was chosen for this case from a stock of ready-made lids, since the reliefs on case and lid seem to have been carved by the same hand.
The Sarcophagus belongs to the Western type (as opposed to the Attic and Asiatic types: see the previous post “Types of Roman Sarcophagi,” April 2015). Only the front and sides are carved, while the back is plain, since it was meant to be set against the tomb wall, where it would not be seen. Moreover, this is a “garland sarcophagus,” especially popular in the early years of sarcophagus production, from the early second century AD. Before then, when cremation was still the norm, garlands decorated ash chests and funerary altars. The garlands represented the real swags of flowers and fruit with which the survivors of the deceased adorned those chests and altars when they visited their loved ones at certain times of the year. With the transition to inhumation, garlands continued to be used for the decoration of sarcophagi.
Olivia Roberts
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