Tüskés Anna (szerk.): Omnis creatura significans - Tanulmányok Prokopp Mária 70. születésnapjára (2009)
Antik és középkori művészet
Martin Pristás The Roman Tombstone in the Kosice Lapidarium During the reconstruction works on the Kosice Dom (cathedral) in the 19th century, a larger amount of tombstones was found belonging to a nearby cemetery around a medieval parish church as well as from underneath the floor of the Dorn. At first, they were stored in the area of a freshly established Upper-Hun- garian museum. Later, 17 pieces were bricked into external walls of the reconstructed St. Michael’s Chapel. The remaining 27 pieces were bricked into the external walls of the Urban Tower and its newly built arcade in 1912. Since then, until 1947,9 other pieces had been added. This had completed the makeover of this baroque belfry arcade into the so-called “Kosice lapidarium.”! The tombstones of the citizens of Kosice from the 14th to the 19th centuries belong to the lapidary. However, one of the tombstones is chronologically and geographically different from the rest. Actually, it was made more than a thousand years earlier than the oldest medieval tombstone in the Kosice lapidary. It was produced during the times when the whole Mediterranean territory was under the rule of the Roman Empire, most probably, in one of its northern provinces near the Danube. It is a fragment of a Roman tombstone (oxqXq) with a relief. This Roman tombstone was probably imported to Kosice during the period of the establishment of the Upper-Hun- garian Museum when people were bringing various curiosities to its collections. It is believed that a certain Mr. Gergely brought it to the museum from the territory of East Pannónia,2 however, I have not been able to verify this information from primary sources. At the beginning, the tombstone was placed in a garden of the museum together with other stone and sculpture relics so that Dr. Eugen Sabol could brick it into the northwest corner of the Urban Tower in 1947 where it is still located. On the preserved part, we can see a relief of a famFig. 1. Kosice lapidarium Fig. 2. Roman stele, Kosice lapidarium ily in an arch tabernacle embroidered on a girth with egg ornament on a short rib. There are three figures placed on a bed (or chair) called kline. On the left side, there is a man with a moustache and a beard; his hair is precisely combed onto his forehead, he is dressed comfortably in a folded tunic. He holds a drinking vessel in his left hand; the right hand is not visible. On his right side there is a child also dressed in a tunic. His hair is also combed onto his forehead but in a different way than on his father. Probably, it is a boy. The fragment of the relief is completed by a figure of a woman dressed in a folded tunic whose face is considerably damaged. Because of this damage, it is very difficult to identify her haircut. Based on the place under her ear as well as the visible part of her body, it can be assumed that the haircut is one which was worn by women during the dynasty of Septimus Severus (the first half of the 3rd century). The last figure on the preserved scene is a smaller figure of a slave, who stands on the left to the kline, probably holding a jug in his right hand. Over his shoulder there could have been a scarf called mappa. The kline has a high back whose backside or the top we can see over the heads of the figures. It stands on high shaped legs. The scene depicts its upholstery. We can not see the right side of the chair because of the damage to the stone. In front of the kline is a round table on three shaped legs with indications of a meal. In the upper right corner of the stele above the tabernacle a dolphin is depicted, a frequent and popular theme on Roman tombstones. Due to the damage, we have only a part of the relief, 23
