Osteotheke

131 Graeco-Roman Osteotheke The soapy, alabaster-like marble is of the type used for small statues in Alexandria in Roman times. The surfaces of the body and lid are incrusted with cement. There is a deep, slightly curved channel cut from one end of the top of the lid to the middle. The form is that of an Attic sarcophagus, and the date might be in the third century A.D., or later. The piece of marble may have been reused, or the carefully cut-out area on the lid may have been designed for some form of vertical attachment, perhaps a cross. Some such reliquaries have a depression in the gable of the roof or an opening for pouring a libation. They were often used for the relics of saints as well as the cremated remains of loved ones. This example may have had decoration painted on the outer surfaces. A similar marble reliquary chest from under the altar of a ruined sixth-century church near Varna (Odessos) in Bulgaria had relics, perhaps of the True Cross, in a gold box set with precious stones insides a silver sarcophagus of traditional Attic shape, all placed in the marble chest with its gabled lid (Weitzmann 1979, pp. 631-633, under no. 569). Cornelius Vermeule and Amy Brauer