Vatican Museums

The mutual and real pertinence between the two elements is uncertain, while appearing likely. The amphora, which reproduces a human being in a stylized form, was designed to contain ashes. The development of the cinerary urn in the anthropomorphous sense, in the shape of both the body (note the looped handles that allude to arms), and of the lid of the vase (here missing but usually in the shape of a human head) is typical of the region of Chiusi. The cinerary urn (the so-called canopic urn) was often placed on a chair like this or, more frequently, on a throne with a circular back. These, together with the funerary furniture, were buried in a large dolium or "zirum".