Sarcophagus from Klazomenai

This type of painted sarcophagus comes mainly from workshops in the Ionian city of Klazomenai near Smyrna (İzmir), on the west coast of present-day Turkey. They were mainly found in the burial sites outside the city. However, they are also known from Ephesus and from the islands of Rhodes and Lesbos.
Characteristic of this sarcophagus production is a tub-shaped unadorned container with a widespread rim. The main production ran until about 470 B.C. Individual particularly splendid examples are fully painted and bear a pediment-shaped lid, which is no longer preserved for this specimen. A group of seven known sarcophagi can be attributed to a specific painter on the basis of detailed observations. The artist of these sarcophagi, who is not known by name, bears the so-called 'Not-Name' Hannover painter, whose eponymous object is the sarcophagus in the Museum August Kestner.
The sarcophagi, which weighed about 500 kg, were sunk into the earth before burial so that only the painted rim could be seen from above. After the sacrificial ceremony, earth was heaped up over the sarcophagus, sometimes creating entire mounds. (AVS)