To My Family and Uğraş Uzun - Bilkent University

5.6 Banqueting couple
Some of the 2 nd -and 3 rd -century Docimeum sarcophagi have reclining
couples (often a male and a female (Cormack, 1997: 146)) on their lids (Toynbee,
1971: 272). Their predecessors could be sought on the Etruscan ossuaries and
sarcophagi (Fig. 109), and the kline monuments of freedman in Julio-Claudian
times (Kleiner, 1992: 306; Cormack, 1997: 145). This feature of the late Asiatic
sarcophagi is also shared by the late Attic sarcophagi, unlike the earlier Asiatic
and Attic sarcophagi, which have gabled lids (Walker, 1985: 22, 36). The
reclining figures were most probably intended to carry portraits of the deceased,
who commissioned the sarcophagus (Walker, 1985: 23). These portraits are
unfortunately either missing or unfinished in most cases, as on the Antakya
Sarcophagus.
The reclining figures are in a banqueting position, representing the
funerary banquet eaten at the graveside (Strong, 1978: 678; Davies, 1999: 152).
The funerary banquet was a feast given by Etruscans, Greek and Romans alike,
and was shared with the dead (e.g. through holes sometimes cut in the lids
(Walker, 1985: 11)). It represents the heavenly banquet, a condition of the
existence of the soul of the deceased in the Elysian fields (Elderkin, 1939: 110;
Nock and Beazley, 1946: 145).
As noted above, it has been suggested that sarcophagi were thought to be
houses of the dead (Elderkin, 1939: 104; Wiegartz, 1965: 24), or temples for
them (Cormack, 1997: 147). If these suggestions are accepted, depicting people
reclining on the roofs of the temples or houses creates a paradox. One suggestion
for resolving that paradox is that lids with reclining people most probably became
common after the tomb was no longer considered a temple or a house (Elderkin,
78