BEDS IN BONE

Archaeological Museum "San Lorenzo"

The necropolis

I secolo a.C.

Fragment

In the section about the necropolis are exhibited several fragments in bone engraved with refined decorations: Dionysus parades, panthers, one Hercules’ head, winged female characters, a dancing menade. These fragments belonged to the decorations of beds dating back to the end of the 1st Century b.C, used to welcome the deaths and then burnt on the funerary pyre according to the ancient rite. The elements were found, with their combustion signs and in fragments, during the excavations in the sixties of last century in the area behind the apses of the Church St. Lorenzo, where in the Roman age there was a necropolis. The decoration in engraved bone used to cover the beds’ legs, its external part and the fulcra. The decoration represents mythological scenes which, in some cases, hide complex eschatological meanings connected to the hopes for the afterlife.

The habit to put the death on a decorated precious bed with slabs in engraved ivory is extremely old but it became very popular in the Hellenistic age and it was widely reaffirmed in Rome and in the Roman world, where the precious ivory was substituted by the bone.

In order to completely understand the structure and the decoration it was fundamental the finding of some items coming from inhumation tombs, which were definitely better preserved than those exhibited in the incineration tombs, burnt on the funerary pyre.

visit the museum's other spaces

The public space

It expresses what the political authority wanted to communicate ideologically, not only at local level but also directly to Rome

The necropolis

Sepulchral stones and grave goods considered necessary for the afterlife

The private space

It enhances the prestige of the élites among the pares and towards the other clientes