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Small marble chest, found in a Roman grave, overview. (©Archaeological Exploration of Sardis/President and Fellows of Harvard College)
Funerary Chest
- Date
- 1st or 2nd C. AD, Roman
- Museum
- Manisa, Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum, 4085
- Museum Inventory No.
- 4085
- Sardis or Museum Inv. No.
- S59.036
- Material
- Marble, Stone
- Object Type
- Sculpture
- Sculpture Type
- Furnishing
- Site
- Sardis
- Sector
- HoB
- Trench
- HoB
- B-Grid Coordinates
- E10 / S60 *99.8
- Findspot
- HoB grave area, tomb, near the E bench of tomb.
- Description
The chest is profiled at the top and bottom of the wall and stands on four squat legs. The front imitates a wooden chest with metal trimmings. A rectangular lock plate is flanked by two spreading palmettes growing out of an acanthus calyx, all in low relief. These in turn are flanked by rings in very shallow incision, imitating metal rings. The lock plate is fastened by two nails on the l. and four on the r., and has an inverted L-shaped hole for a key. The ends of the chest are plain but the interior dips in a triangle below the lower border which is visible from the outside. The interior is roughly chiseled. The back is plain.
Since the piece was found in a Roman grave it can be dated, along with the cemetery, to the 1st or 2nd C. A.D.
- Condition
Marble.
Parts of raised inner rim of chest broken off. Some chipping of projecting profile of lid, and also of feet.
- Dimensions
- H. without lid 0.325; W. 0.49; D. 0.46; H. of foot 0.095; H. of lid ca. 0.08; underside hollowed to a depth of 0.025; int. hollow: 0.36 by 0.335; D. 0.165-0.20,
- Comments
- See Also
- Bibliography
- Published: BASOR157, 28; Hanfmann-Detweiler, Sardis, Capital, 61, fig. 2. For the general type, see Richter, Furniture of the Greeks, fig. 581.
- Author
- NHR