Marble funerary relief with male figures in ship
Γ1112
Stone (Coarse white Thassian marble)
Missing part of the left side and upper part with heads of all figures. Scattered smaller chipping and fine diagonal crack.
Height: 69 cm. Width: 86 cm. Thickness: 5-12 cm.
Tymbaki (Phaistos-Gortyn area)
Roman period:
mid-2nd c. AD:
Gallery:
XXIIExhibition thematic unit:
Classical - Hellenistic - Roman period (5th c. BC-4th c. AD). The CemeteriesDescription
Greater part of a funerary relief which was probably set into the wall of a funerary monument known as a columbarium. It depicts the male members of a family in a ship, travelling to the legendary Isles of the Blessed, together with the partially preserved captain-helmsman on the left and the aged Charon as captain standing on the right. Fish and a dolphin swim in the waves below. The people honoured in the sculpture are depicted as passengers, on a larger scale and almost frontally in the centre. They are a grandfather, son and grandson, three generations of a wealthy military family, the adults with weapons and wearing “parade” dress, and the child in a cap and a long, loose garment, signifying that he belonged to a religious group, probably that of the goddess Cybele. Despite the loss of the heads, which would surely have been expressive, the relief is a work of exceptional quality in both its composition and its execution.Bibliography:
Kritzas, Ch. "Ρωμαϊκό επιτύμβιο ανάγλυφο από την περιοχή Τυμπακίου-Γόρτυνος". In A. Di Vita et alii (eds), Creta romana e protobizantina: atti del congresso internazionale (Iraklion, 23-30 settembre 2000), Padova, 2004, vol. IΙΙ,2, 1089-1102.Author:
K. S.Photographs' metadata