The “Sarcophagus of the Poet”

Photogallery

The “Sarcophagus of the Poet”
The “Sarcophagus of the Poet”
The “Sarcophagus of the Poet”
The “Sarcophagus of the Poet”
The “Sarcophagus of the Poet”
The “Sarcophagus of the Poet”
Room IV. Stones (epigraphs and sculpture)

Orestes and Pylades are depicted in animated attitudes near the body of Aegisthus, lover of Clytemnestra, after having killed him; at the centre, on the altar, there lies Clytemnestra, killed by her son Orestes to avenge the assassination of his father Agamemnon. Electra, sister of Orestes and inspirer of the vendetta, sits near the altar and at the left in the following scene, Orestes is persecuted by the Furies. On the opposite side there are scenes from the Theban saga: the duel of Eteocles and Polynices, in the presence of female funerary demons with torches, blind Oedipus and Jocasta seated, contemplating suicide. On the short sides there is Telephus in the Greek camp, threatening the little Orestes with death; Neoptolemus sacrifices Polyxena on Achilles’ tomb (?).
The lid, not pertinent, represents the deceased lying down holding a volumen (book on a scroll).
During the Hellenistic age in the cities of southern Etruria the use of a sarcophagus positioned inside a burial chamber was imposed. This sarcophagus was structured in order to be viewed from all sides, unlike those of Etruscan use. The iconography is of Hellenistic derivation with typically Etruscan interpolations, such as the insertion of the funerary genii, selecting refined themes related to fate and death.