Cypriot Limestone Grave Marker in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2008

Limestone Grave Marker
Cypriot, Classical, 4th century BC
Said to be from the necropolis at Golgoi

Part of the Cesnola Collection, Accession # 74.51.2484

Two men reclining at a banquet are represented in the upper panel, while a couple seen from the waist up fill the space below. The Cypriots were among the first to represent banquets on funerary monuments. As on the sarcophagus (74.51.2451) nearby, such a scene may have simply evoked the pleasures of daily life or it may have been intended to elevate the deceased to heroic level.

Text from the Metropolitan Museum of Art label.