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Image
3D Model
© Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Girona
Omeka ID 290
Empúries
Roman

Season Sarcophagus

MAC GIR-001056

Object type
sarcophagus
Production date
301 / 325
Fabric
stone material, construction and architectural of the Roman period
Museum
Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya - Girona
Culture
Roman
Discovery location
Empúries
Materials
marble
Township
Escala, l' (Europa, Espanya, Catalunya, Girona, Alt Empordà)
Technique
sculpting
Where is it?
MASPG
Dimensions
550 x 2110 x 640 mm
Description
Sarcophagus of the Seasons: Roman sarcophagus in a non-Christian tradition, which highlights the rich decoration of both the box and the lid, which is whole. It was found during the first official excavations in Empúries in 1846, in an imprecise place of the cella memoria next to the eastern side of the old late Antiquity cemetery (grave no. 410 ) around the early Christian basilica of Neapolis. It is an excellent work from a Roman workshop dated in the time of the Tetrarchy very early in the fourth century AD. Box: the sarcophagus consists of a box with a central character, possibly the one buried inside the tomb, and on both sides the figurative representations of the four seasons. The centre of the box shows an imago clipeata arranged in a large shell with conventional representation of the deceased, with himation and carrying a rolled uolumen with rich and full decoration on both sides, with eight people standing, four on each side, all naked except for a sort of blanket placed over the shoulder, with the exception of the third figure on the left of the central image, a good shepherd (criophoros) wearing a short tunic and sandals and carrying a lamb over his shoulder, and next to him, the fourth conventional representation of winter dressed like Attis with long breeches (braccae) and a mantle that covers the head and part of the breast. To the right of the figure of the Good Shepherd, representing autumn, a naked figure with a blanket in front of the chest and, behind, Eros riding a panther. On the far right of the casket, again representing the genius of autumn with a blanket in front of the chest, holding a hare in his raised right hand and below a dog that would take it. On his right the image of the summer with a chlamys crowned by ears of corn and beyond the genius of spring crowned with wreaths. Between them, a flowering tree with Eros between the branches. The clipeus in the form of a shell is supported by two deities, winged and crowned, covered with a blanket. At the top, two small victories, also winged, help to sustain it. The myth of Selene and Endymion is developed below the central image.

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