Roman marble urn (Berlin SK 1125)

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The Roman marble urn with the lid that did not belong to it is now in the Berlin Antiquities Collection in the Pergamon Museum .

The marble urn in the current display in the Pergamon Museum

The urn, in which it was found that the lid does not belong to the original, was made in the city of Rome at the beginning of the 2nd century AD . Inscriptions on the tabula (plaque) set out whose remains were buried in the urn:

D (is) M (anibus)
Helio Afin (iano)
pub (lico) aug (urum)
Sextia psyche
coniugi b (ene) m (erenti)
The gods of the dead.
For Helius Afinianus,
public slave of the augurs,
(established this) Sextia Psyche
for her husband well deserved.

Accordingly, the buried Helius Afinianius was a state slave of Augurenkollegiums . It can be assumed that a similar lid also served as the original closure. The urn sides are worked out like brickwork and thus also support the architectural character of the urn. Over the board there are open doors in front of which a couple shakes hands. Open doors were common when portraying married couples, where one spouse said goodbye to the other. The doors symbolized the transition to the world beyond. Since Helius was a slave, he could not have been married, which is why such representations could also be of a purely symbolic nature. However, his partner Sextia Psyche referred to him on the inscription with the usual expression coniunx for "spouse", as in a second inscription of the couple.

The sides of the urn were elaborately designed. In the lower line of relief there are winged sphinxes on small tables on both sides of the tabula . Above it, on the sides of the couple, are erotes holding doves in their hands. The upper end is formed by a bar with a double spiral band. In the middle of the spiral band is a gable belonging to the door below. The urn was found in Rome and was in the Silvio Rione Arenula collection. The small grave building has been demonstrable in Berlin since at least the 17th century.

literature

  • Friedrike Sinn: City Roman marble urns , von Zabern, Mainz 1987 (Contributions to the development of Hellenistic and Imperial Sculpture and Architecture, Vol. 8), ISBN 3-8053-0906-6 , p. 217.
  • Max Kunze : Square marble urn with a lid that does not belong to it . In: State Museums in Berlin. Prussian cultural property. Antikensammlung (Ed.): The Antikensammlung in the Pergamon Museum and in Charlottenburg . von Zabern, Mainz 1992, ISBN 3-8053-1187-7 , p. 223.
  • Roman ash box . In: Königliche Museen zu Berlin (Ed.), Alexander Conze (preliminary work): Description of the ancient sculptures with the exclusion of the Pergamene finds . Spemann, Berlin 1891, urn : nbn: de: bsz: 16-diglit-34567 , pp. 436–437. (Directory No. 1125)

Remarks

  1. ↑ Additions according to CIL 6, 02317 . The addition to the Antikensammlung is slightly different:
    D [iis] M [anibus]
    Helio Afin [iano]
    Pub [lius] Aug [urum]
    Sextia psyche
    Coniugi BM
    In: Max Kunze: Grave relief of a Roman couple , in: The antique collection in the Pergamon Museum and in Charlottenburg . von Zabern, Mainz 1992, p. 223.
  2. ↑ CIL 6, 2316 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '15 "  N , 13 ° 23' 47"  E