{"id":1266,"date":"2011-07-19T01:42:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T05:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/?p=1266"},"modified":"2015-03-13T23:13:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-14T03:13:33","slug":"the-getty-villa-museum-part-three-grave-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/bibleandculture\/2011\/07\/19\/the-getty-villa-museum-part-three-grave-art\/","title":{"rendered":"The Getty Villa Museum–Part Three– Grave Art"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a> Some of the more colorful and interesting artifacts in the Getty museum fall under the category of grave art.\u00a0 First of all we have here three sarcophagus top paintings of the persons interred, of course looking much better than they did under the lid.\u00a0\u00a0 This type of art was found in Egypt during the Roman period, and the bearded man\u2019s portrait was found on a sarcophagus in Er-Rubyat\u00a0 (A.D. 140-60).\"\"<\/a> The second portrait is of a youth with a Horus lock (note the two tufts on the otherwise shaved front of his head, with the Horus lock at the back of the portrait). Children named after the god Horus got this sort of haircut, and notice the amulet around his neck, meant to ward off harm. \u00a0 These paintings were done using the encaustic technique and after death they would be placed over the face of the departed and then bound into the line body wrappings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The finest and most elaborate of these grave portraits is the third one is of a woman named Isadora from about 100 A.D. or so. What is notable about these portraits is they represent the cross fertilization of Roman and Egyptian cultures and ideals.\u00a0 Egypt had long since become a Roman province thanks to Julius Caesar and his successors. \u00a0 The province was a crucial one for it was the breadbasket of the whole Mediterranean, and so there was a very significant Roman presence in Egypt from Caesar\u2019s time onwards, in order to protect this asset.\u00a0 Of course the story of Caesar and Cleopatra and Marc Antony and Cleopatra is familiar.<\/p>\n

Egyptians of course had a much more elaborate and positive set of afterlife beliefs than the Romans, and these portraits were not just memorials, for it was believed that mummy portrait helped the person survive death in physical form by providing a sort of substitute body for the spirit of the departed to inhabit should the corpse itself be destroyed or crumble into dust.\u00a0\u00a0 The third picture is of a socially elite and refined woman.\u00a0 Her name is painted on the left side of the image.\u00a0\u00a0 This is what a Roman matron was supposed to look like, and you will notice all her gold jewelry. This is a wealthy family.\u00a0 The Egyptians, it will be remembered, believed you could \u2018take it with you\u2019 and so they were buried with their bling, and other things. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Marble sarcophagi could also be elaborately decorated as the example below demonstrates.\u00a0\u00a0 Normally mythological images and cupids abound in such grave art, sometimes even masks for tragedy and comedy from the theatre if the person had been an actor or playwright. \"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The two marble images at the bottom of this post are noteworthy as grave art.\u00a0 My personal favorite is the one at the very bottom which depicts\u00a0 Publius\u00a0 Curtilius the freedman of\u00a0 Publius the silversmith\u00a0 (A.D. 1-25).\u00a0 This man is depicted as an older man holding the tools of his trade, a chaser tool in one hand and what\u2019s left of a mallet in the other, and perhaps a silver object beneath his right hand.\u00a0 He proudly wears his formal toga.\u00a0 These funerary tributes often lined the Via Appia and other major roads where there were graveyards.\u00a0\u00a0 It tells us a lot about Roman values that a person would wanted to be represented on his grave stele by indicating the profession he proudly undertook. \u2018You are what you do\u2019 seems to be the message,\u00a0 one Americans would readily recognize.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of the more colorful and interesting artifacts in the Getty museum fall under the category of grave art.\u00a0 First of all we have here three sarcophagus top paintings of the persons interred, of course looking much better than they did under the lid.\u00a0\u00a0 This type of art was found in Egypt during the Roman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Getty Villa Museum--Part Three-- Grave Art<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Some of the more colorful and interesting artifacts in the Getty museum fall under the category of grave art.\u00a0 First of all we have here three sarcophagus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta 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