To My Family and Uğraş Uzun - Bilkent University

Crassus (Morey, 1924: 15). This suggestion is supported by the fact that a
Sulpicius Crassus, proconsul of Asia in 190-1 and 191-2, is known to have died
in Lydia, put to death by the order of Commodus during his administration
(Morey, 1924: 15). If the suggestion is correct, than the sarcophagus is an unusual
one, commissioned by one of the wealthiest women of Asia Minor of her time.
Moreover, the lid of the sarcophagus is highly exceptional with two reclining
females rather than a male and a female, which might mean that Sabina’s
husband was already dead when the sarcophagus was commissioned, and she
might have been forced to stay in Asia until she died (Morey, 1924: 15). These
characteristics show that the sarcophagus was a “special” order, and it is unlikely
that the sculptors carved a lid for an already available chest (Morey, 1924: 16). It
is more likely that the chest and the lid portraits were carved together on this
special commission.
For the Melfi Sarcophagus also, Wiegartz might have been attracted by
the same idea that this sarcophagus was also a very special commission, ordered
by a very wealthy customer who could afford the transportation cost to Italy.
Thus, Wiegartz might have assumed that the chest of such a commission must
have been carved simultaneously with the lid portrait.
However, the controversy begins when Wiegartz does not follow the same
argument for other sarcophagi. For Antalya N Sarcophagus (Sarcophagus of
Domitias Filiskas) (Fig. 96), he suggests a date of 190-5 on the basis of its
ornamentation, compared with the Melfi and Istanbul G sarcophagi (Wiegartz,
1965: Taf. 47). However, the portrait head on the lid of this sarcophagus is
preserved and the hair style of the female portrait is the hair style of Elagabalus’s
wives, dating to the second decade of the 3 rd century. Wiegartz clearly did not
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