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Family gravestone from Macedonia

Date first half of the 3rd century A.D.
Object type relief
Medium, technique carved, marble
Dimensions

height: 76 cm; width: 45 cm

Inventory number 50.961
Collection Classical Antiquities
On view Museum of Fine Arts, Basement Floor, Classical Antiquity, Hellas – Italy – Rome

The relief displays the portraits of a couple and two boys. They are clad in Roman clothes, tunic and mantle, with the hairstyle following the fashion of the years 200–250. The head of the woman is covered as a sign of her chastity.
The upper register shows a hunting scene: a rider on horseback attacking a boar that bursts out of its den. The scene is characteristic of the northern Balkans. We do not know whom it represents; it appears both on tombstones and votive reliefs, and may thus have been interpreted in a number of different ways.
The figures are frontal: not plastically sculpted, but composed of planes. The head receives much greater emphasis; it is larger than the body. The relief is a typical representative of the art of the Imperial period in Macedonia.

Marble analyses have shown that the funerary relief was made of Prokonnesian (Marmara) marble.

This record is subject to revision due to ongoing research.

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