TERRACOTTA LARNAX, 1400-1200 BCE, FROM CRETE. BRITISH MUSEUM This terracotta ossuary has rounded loop handles on both lid and box, and shows decoration in black paint that can still be barely made out. The front of the box (and presumably the back) has two recessed panels with quatrefoil and scale designs, while the lid has a pattern of tentacles. This comes from a British excavation at Rousolakkos, a Bronze Age city on the coast of Palaikastro near Mount Dicte, the legendary birthplace of Zeus. The larnax comes from toward the very end of the Bronze Age in Crete, when the island was ruled by Mycenaean Greeks facing the invading Sea Peoples, who would close out the period in chaos and destruction.

#SarcophagusSaturday at the #BritishMuseum surprises us with quite the little collection of #Minoan funerary furniture, like this terracotta #larnax or #ossuary from 1400-1200 BCE, found at Palaikastro in northeastern #Crete. This one has traces of painted decoration. #AncientBluesky 🏺

LARNAX WITH FEMALE FACE, 240-220 BCE. MUSEO DELL'ARTE SALVATA, BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN This third cinerary urn found in an illicit excavation in the locality of S. Donnino outside the Umbrian town of Città della Pieve is much simpler than the other two from the same tomb belonging to the women of the aristocratic Pulfna family. It's a quite simple box in a local tufo whose lid has no effigy of the deceased but is a simple flat slab, on the front of which is a long inscription both incised and painted in red. I can't find a translation of this, but I can make out the name Pulfna on it. The corners of this box are carved like pilasters, and extend below it to make short legs. At centre is a strange female face, carved in an almost childlike way, with bulging eyes, triangular nose, and irregular mouth. She is probably a Medusa, with brown painted hair below an unpainted and jagged crown (?). Two symmetrical S-volutes flank the head, on a painted brown background.

For #SarcophagusSaturday we're back one last time at the #MuseodellArteSalvata at the #BathsofDiocletian in #Rome, to see a strange #Etruscan #cinerary #urn or #larnax saved from the clandestine antiquities market by the #Carabinieri. #AncientBluesky 🏺

LARNAX WITH THE HUNT FOR THE CALYDONIAN BOAR, 210-150 BCE. MUSEO DELL'ARTE SALVATA This larnax or Etruscan cinerary urn comes from the same place as last week's, the tomb of the women of the powerful gens Pufna. Here the lid shows a reclining woman in painted alabastrine gypsum, with golden jewelry, leaning on her elbow, a ring on the finger of one hand, a patera or offering plate in her other hand, resting on her knee. Her beautiful face, still rich with polychromy, is tilted upward as if awaiting the dawn. The box itself shows the scene of the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, reduced to its essentials to fit the small space: Meleager is driving a spear into the boar, Atalanta with her bow stands behind the boar, and at right a nude hunter is flashing the boar, while favouring the viewer with some truly solid gluteal muscles.

This #Etruscan #larnax was recovered in 2024 from a site near Città della Pieve in #Umbria, a splendid example for #SarcophagusSaturday. The scene on the box of these larnakes is always a rather generic #Greek mythical episode, like a decorated base for the #portrait above. 🧵

LARNAX WITH THE COMBAT BETWEEN ETEOCLES AND POLYNICES, 200-150 BCE. VILLA GIULIA This urn, which shows traces of the original polychromy, belongs to a group of terracotta urns made from moulds produced by workshops in the area of the Etruscan city of Chiusi. They were mass produced for customers who could not afford the more expensive alabaster or travertine urns. The lid is in the shape of a semi-recumbent male figure holding a votive plate (patera) in his right hand. The scene depicted on the front of the case, framed by two winged female genii (Vanth) holding torches, shows the duel to the death between Oedipus' sons, Eteocles and Polynices. who, after the death of their father, were vying for the government of the city of Thebes. This legend, set in the heroic age, is part of the saga of the Seven Against Thebes, which the great Greek tragedian Aeschylus staged in Athens in 467 BCE. The name "Eteocles" may be an authentic survival from the Bronze Age. It appears in royal genealogies at both Thebes and Orchomenos, and an Assyrian tablet (the language of international diplomacy in the Bronze Age) from about 1260 BCE found in the archives of Pylos mentions an "Etewokleweios" (full of the archaic digamma "w" that disappears with classical Greek) as harassing Hittite allies on the western coast of Anatolia.

#SarcophagusSaturday takes us to the #VillaGiulia where we find this lovely cinerary urn or #larnax with a male figure on the lid and fratricide on the front. Some #polychromy survives, as well. #ClassicsBluesky 🏺

Ein #Larnax mit Octopusbemalung🐙
Auf dem Bild sehr ihr ein Grabgefäß aus der #Bronzezeit. Es handelt sich um eine typische Darstellung bei den Minoern. In dieser #Kultur gab es viele Darstellungen von Octopoden:

www.miss-jones.de/2021/03/12/o...