Image Details

Scala/Art Resource, NY

A woman named Larthia Seianti reclines with languorous ease atop this splendid terracotta sarcophagus, found near Chiusi in 1877. Dating to the second century B.C.E, the sarcophagus is now housed in the Florence Archaeological Museum. Most likely, Larthia Seianti was an important woman, given the lavish way in which she was memorialized. A coin was found inside the sarcophagus—tribute, perhaps, to Charon, the mythical ferryman who was thought to escort the dead across the River Styx.