To My Family and Uğraş Uzun - Bilkent University

A third difficulty in dating is that while a number of sarcophagi have
portrait heads on lids, which can be dated with some confidence by the hair and
beard styles, this possibility does not exist for the Antakya Sarcophagus, as one
head on the lid is missing and the other is unfinished. The hair and the beard
styles of the figures on the chest of the sarcophagus could not be used with the
same certainty to determine the date, since the artisans might have used generic
and traditional hair styles on the chests- unless these figures have a portrait
character- as they used standard figure types, gestures, motives, compositions,
etc., that have late Classical and Hellenistic prototypes.
Under these circumstances, we have to rely basically on stylistic analyses
and comparanda material for the dating of the Antakya Sarcophagus. But even so,
there are other difficulties related to the stylistic predictions and comparanda.
One is that most of the columnar sarcophagi are too fragmentary and too poorly
preserved to allow a thorough idea of their ornamentation and figure types.
Another difficulty is in finding clear photographs of the relevant sarcophagi,
indeed for most of them, finding any photographs at all; the available catalogues
are mostly content with giving brief descriptions alone (Morey, 1924; Wiegartz,
1965).
One final difficulty is fitting the Antakya Sarcophagus into the prevailing
accepted chronology for the Docimeum columnar sarcophagi (Fig. 110). As
explained in Chapter II, the chronology proposed by H. Wiegartz for the
Docimeum columnar sarcophagi is accepted by M. Waelkens and G. Koch and
Sichtermann (Wiegartz, 1965; Waelkens, 1982: 7; Koch and Sichtermann, 1982:
507), yet there are controversial points about this chronology (to be discussed
below) which, of course, makes the dating of the Antakya Sarcophagus on
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