Roman Sarcophagi

The object chosen is a Roman tomb relief made of marble; it dates from around the third to fourth century AD. It is Roman in origin, but no specific province or city was specified. The scene depicted on the relief is highly detailed, and it depicts a shop assistant or labourer carrying a basket of goods (likely olives or dates) to a shop keeper. The shop keeper is depicted as reaching for the basket of goods, intending to weigh them by pouring the contents of the basket into the modius measure (a hollow vessel used for measurements of non-liquids) on the floor. This relief, along with other similar reliefs, would have been used to decorate the shop keeper’s tomb. Tomb reliefs were often used in Roman society to tell stories from the deceased’s life, and to give the population a glimpse into the deceased’s life. On the top left of the relief is the Latin word Memoria, which translates to memory in English. While English speakers might associate the word

For example, one Roman sarcophagus depicts the mythical battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. Another sarcophagus depicts the deceased being held up by angelic figures called “putti.” So, whereas the shop keeper’s relief shows a relatively normal scene (a shop keeper unloading his wares), the sarcophagi opt to show mythological scenes, or scenes of the deceased interacting with the deceased. It is also interesting that the image depicted on the shop keeper’s relief is very straightforward and not open to interpretation, but the images on the sarcophagi are in some ways allegorical. The description of the sarcophagus states that the images of the Greeks triumphing over the Amazons is an allegory for the person’s triumph over evil in the afterlife (the Greeks represent civilization and the Amazons represent