Roman Sarcophagi

The marble sarcophagus emerged as a vital aspect of Roman sculptural production, when, at some point in the later first century CE, cremation gradually began to be supplanted by inhumation as the dominant funerary form. The sarcophagi served as an interior embellishment of a new, distinctively private form of sepulchral monument, in which commemorative practice abandoned its former public proclamations in favor of a more limited audience. The sarcophagus brought with it as well a decisive transformation of the conventions long established for funerary imagery. The sarcophagi and their various forms, styles, and subject matter have been collected and published in Die Antiken Sarkophagreliefs. The sarcophagi are distinguished not only by the highly structured setting in which they were to be seen and the strictly defined audience who were assembled there to see them, but by the broad range of their design and the wide variety of their imagery.