Hagia Triada sarcophagus

The Hagia Triada sarcophagus is a late Bronze Age 137 cm-long limestone sarcophagus. It was originally dated to 1400 BC and was rediscovered in Hagia Triada on Crete in 1903. It provides probably the most comprehensive iconography of a pre-Homeric thysiastikis ceremony and one of the best pieces of information on noble burial customs when Crete was under Mycenaean rule, combining features of Minoan and Mycenaean style and subject matter. The sarcophagus is on display in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.

Coated in plaster and painted in fresco, it has posed an art historical conundrum ever since its rediscovery, since the Minoans (unlike the ancient Egyptians) otherwise only used frescoes for the enjoyment of the living and not in funerary practice. It is the only limestone sarcophagus of its era discovered to date and the only sarcophagus with a series of narrative scenes of Minoan funerary ritual (later sarcophagi found in the Aegean were decorated with abstract designs and patterns). It was originally used for the burial of a prince. The painted frieze around the sarcophagus shows all the stages of the sacred ceremony which was performed at the burial of important personages. In the centre of one of the long sides of the sarcophagus is a scene with bull sacrifice. On the left of the second long side a woman wearing a crown is carrying two vessels. By her side a man dressed in a long robe is playing a seven string lyre. This is the earliest picture of the lyre known in classical Greece. In front of them another woman is emptying the contents of a vessel-perhaps the blood of the sacrificed bull-into a second vessel, possibly as an invocation to the soul of the deceased.(This scene reminds us of a description in Homer, where the dead needed blood). On the right three men holding animals and a boat are approaching a male figure without arms and legs and presumably he represents the dead man receiving gifts (the boat for his journey to the next world). It is possible that they believed that the dead was living in a different state and he could probably reappear.

Recent 20th century excavations on the same site have allowed the sarcophagus's dating to be tightened up to 1370-1320 BC, which coincides with the end of the 18th Dynasty in Egypt, a period of extensive contact between Crete and Egypt, thus allowing the sarcophagus's technical and artistic elements to be related to similar decorative techniques in Egyptian temples and tombs. Some miniature sculpture found in other places of Crete (Kamilari,Archanes) during this period are connected with the worship of the dead and there are traces of a true funereal Egyptian cult at the same period. Funereal cults were not common in Crete, but they were practised in certain instances: at the tombs of dead kings, or possibly of higher officials and kings.

...
Wikipedia