To My Family and Uğraş Uzun - Bilkent University

1939: 110). Another suggestion is the idea of heroizing the dead by placing them
above the temple or the house (Wiegartz, 1965: 24). Either way, it may be more
reasonable to see the tomb-chests as imitating contemporary buildings like
propylaea, nymphaea and scaenae frontes, rather than temples (Cormack, 1997:
147).
It is very common to come across an open scroll in front of the male
banqueter on the lids of the Docimeum columnar sarcophagi, which is the case
with the Antakya Sarcophagus. It has been suggested that with the addition of the
scroll, the banquet became a literary event and the scroll could even indicate that
the deceased was a poet (Elderkin, 1939: 110). The fact that the scroll motif is
seen quite frequently on the Docimeum sarcophagi (either in front of the reclining
male, or in the hands of the seated or standing philosopher/poet type male figures
on the chest of the sarcophagus) refutes the idea that the scroll means in all cases
that the deceased was a poet. It is more likely that the scroll alludes to the
qualities of the deceased. By learning the gifts of the Muses- poetry or
philosophy- he becomes more humane, a qualification that leads him to heavenly
places (Nock and Beazley, 1946: 143).
On the whole, we might conclude that the banqueting couple on the lid
serves two purposes: as an effigy of the commissioner-deceased, and the
deceased ritually sharing the funerary banquet with the family members.
5.7 Erotes and Putti
Before the production of the Docimeum columnar sarcophagi, the
workshops of the Eastern Empire, like those at Mount Pentellicus, Proconnessus
and Docimeum, often produced sarcophagi with erotes carrying garlands. Indeed,
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