THE EXHIBIT
Tymbaki. mid-2nd c. AD
This funerary relief of the Roman period found at Tymbaki was probably set into the wall of a funerary monument known as a columbarium. Most of the scene is preserved, depicting the male members of a family in a ship. The passengers are travelling to the legendary Isles of the Blessed, together with the partially preserved captain-helmsman on the left and the aged Charon standing on the right. Fish and a dolphin swim in the waves below. The people honoured in the sculpture are depicted on a larger scale and almost frontally in the centre. They are a grandfather, son and grandson, three generations of a wealthy military family, the adults with weapons and wearing “parade” dress, and the child in a cap and a long, loose garment, signifying that he belonged to a religious group, probably that of the goddess Cybele. Despite the loss of the heads, which would surely have been expressive, the relief is a work of exceptional quality both in its composition and its execution.