Cover of a phoenician anthropoid sarcophagus

This work, of Phoenician make, comes from Sidon. It was part of a human-shaped sarcophagus in Parian marble that still shows considerable vestiges of the original colors. The use of Greek marble testifies to the close cultural and commercial ties between Phoenicia and the Greek world in the classical age. The quasi naïf rendering of the dead woman’s face – reduced to a simple mask painted on the smooth surface of the sarcophagus – exhibits features common in the local tradition: the large mass of hair from which globular earrings emerge, the round face, the large eyes and the full, sinuous mouth.