To My Family and Uğraş Uzun - Bilkent University

show late Antonine features. The full beards and the hair of male figures can be
compared to coin portraits of Marcus Aurelius (Fig. 125) (Mattingly and
Sydenham, 1930: Plate XIII). The philosopher beards of the Antakya
Sarcophagus figures seem to have been updated according to late Antonine
fashion. The hair styles of the female Figures A and D, on the other hand, hardly
carry any late Antonine features. The elaborate and wavy coiffeurs of the
Antonine ladies covering the ears down to the ear lobes are different from the less
painstaking buns of the Antakya Sarcophagus figures leaving the whole ears
exposed. One comparanda could be the marble portrait of Faustina the Younger,
the so-called Type 7, wearing a wavy hair style tidied in a loose bun at the back
(Fig. 126) (Kleiner and Matheson, 1996: 47). The only common point between
Faustina’s hair style and those of the figures on the Antakya Sarcophagus is the
loosely tied bun at the nape of the neck. Moreover, none of the Antonine portraits
has a ribbon around the head such as the one of the Figure A on the Antakya
Sarcophagus. Thus the hair styles of the female figures on the Antakya
Sarcophagus are much closer to those of the Greek prototypes, than to the Roman
fashion.
The above mentioned “updated” philosopher beards according to the late
Antonine fashion might at first seem to contradict the proposed Severan date of
the Antakya Sarcophagus. This is not necessarily the case, as it is quite normal
that the provincial sculptors did not follow the latest fashions of the capital, but
may have been attached to a tradition of carving beards established when the
columnar sarcophagi first began to be produced (Morey, 1924: 17). Moreover, the
Severan date of the Antakya Sarcophagus is attested by further evidence such as
the full limbs, weird proportions of the figures (e.g. with respect to their horses),
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