To My Family and Uğraş Uzun - Bilkent University

he and his wife his wife Julia Domna are depicted as offering sacrifices at the
altar (Fig. 91).
The scenes on these reliefs show that the main officiant in charge of the
ceremonies offering libations or sacrifices was dressed distinctively, such as a
toga with a covered head. Although the libation offering scene on the Antakya
Sarcophagus is similar to those on Roman reliefs, Figure I wears a Greek
himation with an uncovered head, which might suggest that the scene represents a
Greek funeral. Accordingly, Figure I most probably represents a relative of the
deceased, as it was the family of the deceased who were mainly in charge of
practicing the rituals in Greek funerals (Toynbee, 1971: 43). His beard, himation
and the scroll in this hand may be alluding to the cultural and philosophical
pursuits of the dead man (Wiegartz, 1965: 84; Toynbee, 1965: 104; Ferguson,
1982: 142).
There have been other suggestions about the identification of the male
figures next to tomb portals on the Docimeum columnar sarcophagi. In the case
of the Rome K (Palazzo Torlonia) Sarcophagus (Fig. 7), for example, the figure
next to the tomb portal has been identified as the son of the deceased coming to
the tomb with offerings (Ferguson, 1982: 141). However, there is no direct
evidence that the Palazzo Torlonia figure is a son of the deceased, as he could be
any other close relative. Moreover, the male figures on the Antakya and the
Palazzo Torlonia Sarcophagi are totally different from each other. The male
figure on the latter is nude, beardless and is holding a ram’s head in his left hand
and a staff in his right (Morey, 1924: 48), while the male figure (Figure I) on the
Antakya Sarcophagus wears a himation, has a beard, and holds a scroll in his left
65