SARCOPHAGUS (Gr. vapsorg yos, literally " flesh-eating," from vapt, flesh, ayeiv, to eat)

This article appears in Volume V24, Page 209 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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SARCOPHAGUS (Gr. vapsorg yos, literally " flesh-eating," from vapt, flesh, ayeiv, to eat) , the name given to a coffin in stone, which on account of its caustic qualities, according to Pliny (H.N. xxxvi. 27), consumed the

body

BODY

forty

FORTY

days; also by the Greeks to a sepulchral chest, in stone or other material, which was more or less enriched with ornament and sculpture. One of the finest examples known is the sarcophagus of Seti, the second king of the XIX. Egyptian dynasty (13261300 B.C.), which is carved out of a

block

of Aragonite or hard carbonate of lime, now in the Soane Museum; of later date are the greenporphyry sarcophagus and the terra-cotta sarcophagus from Clazomenae; both of these date from the early 6th century B.C., and are in the British Museum. The finest Greek examples are those found at Sidon in 1887 by Hamdy Bey, which are now in the Imperial Museum at Constantinople (see GREEK ART). Of

Etruscan

ETRUSCAN

sarcophagi there are numerous examples in terra-cotta; occasionally they are miniature representations of temples, and sometimes in the form of a couch on which rest figures of the deceased; one of these in the British Museum

dates

DATES

from 500 B.C. The earliest Roman sarcophagus is that of Scipio in the Vatican (3rd century B.C.), carved in peperino stone. Of later Roman sarcophagi, there is an immense

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

enriched with figures in high relief, of which the

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

are the Niobid example in the Lateran, the Lycomedes sarcophagus in the Capitol, the Penthesilea sarcophagus in the Vatican, and the immense sarcophagus representing a battle of the Romans and the barbarians in the Museo delle Terme. In later Roman work there was a great decadence in the sculpture, so that in the following centuries recourse was had to the red Egyptian

porphyry

PORPHYRY (IlopcPisptos) (A.D. 233-c. 304)

, of which the sarcophagi of Constantia (A.D. 355) and of the empress

Helena

HELENA
HELENA, ST (c. 247-c. 327)

(A.D. 589), both in the Vatican, are fine examples. Of later date, during the Byzantine period, there is a large

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

either in museums or in the cloisters of the Italian churches. They are generally decorated with a series of niches with figures in them, divided by small attached shafts with semicircular or sloping covers carved with religious emblems, one of the best examples being the sarcophagus of Sta

Barbara

BARBARA, SAINT

, dating from the beginning of the 6th century, at Ravenna, where there are many others. The term sarcophagus is sometimes applied also to an altar tomb.

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