Etruscan Sarcophagus with a Reclining Man in the University of Pennsylvania Museum, November 2009

Sarcophagus with Reclining Man
Civita Musarna
3rd-2nd century BC

# MS 3488a,b

The lid shows a man reclining as if at a banquet, still the favorite symbol for an important, socially connected personage. He holds an unidentified object. Other urns and sarcophagi of this period show men with writing tablets, linen books, or cult objects. The sea-monsters that decorate the chest were chosen as supernatural guardians. They symbolize the growing trend in Etruscan art toward simple, repeated images and away from complicated narrative with human figures. (The lid and the chest probably do not belong together.)

Text from the U. Penn. Museum label.