Fülöp Gyula (szerk.): Festschrift für Jenő Fitz - Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. B. sorozat 47. (Székesfehérvár, 1996)

E. Alföldi-Rosenbaum: Womens Mantles with Decorated Borders

Fig. 3: Sarcophagus of C. Sillenus and Carbonnaca Vera. Brescia, Museo Romano. Photo courtesy of H. Gabelmann

similar context. They have, at least in their present mounting, no staff of any kind, and they are labelled “knife handles”.

The carvings 1-3 certainly have strong affinities in basic design to the piece in the British Museum; their use is equally uncertain, but it cannot have been identical, since they lack the hollow base with the little ball. Unfortunately, the female bust with her embroidered garment is unlikely to be of any help in the interpretation of the object, since it belongs to a category found on a number of very diverse objects spread over a wide geographical range.

II.

The mantles with decorated borders6 belong to various types, not all of which I was able to identify or give a correct name.<7> The following list of monuments discussed is arranged according to the type of mantle. It does not claim to be even remotely complete. Indeed, especially in the minor arts I have only made a very cursory search.(8)

A. Toga-like mantle which renders the balteus and the sinus not contabulated as on a man’s toga,(9) but as a fairly wide smooth band decorated with an undulating scroll imitating embroidery, perhaps with gold thread.

1. (Fig. 3) Sarcophagus of C. Sillenus. Brescia, Museo Romano. H. Gabelmann, Die Werkstattgruppen der oberitalischen

(6) In the following study, I have restricted myself to mantles with embroidered borders, which means that garments showing embroidery over a larger area or even all over have been left out of consideration. W. D. Wixom, BCIev Mus March 1967, p. 74 mentions the headless bust of a woman in the Museum of Antalya (Inv. No. 22) “about 14 inches high (which) displays a rinceaux decorated stole drawn together downward from the shoulders, making a V at the front and terminating just above the index plate which separates the bust from its rounded and moulded base”. Since I did not see this piece and was unable to obtain a photograph in time for this article I cannot include it in my discussion. Judging

Sarkophage (Bonner Jb. Beiheft 34, 1973), Cat. No. 75; esp. pp. 118 f., PI. 41,1. Dated by Gabelmann end of 3rd/beginning of 4th century. - The arched niches flanking the central gabled niche with the inscription show almost identical figures of Carbonnaca, the wife of C. Sillenus, standing on a pedestal. C. Sillenus Serenianus, who commissioned the sarcophagus during his life time, was a municipal official of rank.

2. Large sarcophagus from Sidamaria. Istanbul, Arkeoloji Miizeleri, Inv. 1179. H. Wiegartz, Kleinasiatische Säulensarkophage (Istanbuler Forschungen 26, Berlin 1965), 156 f., Istanbul B, PI. 34 a (with earlier bibliography). Better illustration: M. Schede, Meisterwerke der türkischen Museen zu Konstantinopel I, pp. 19 f., Pl. XXIX. Dated by general consensus ca. A.D. 250.

The lady reclining with her husband on the lid of the sarcophagus wears a kind of toga draped almost exactly as that of Carbonnaca on the Brescia sarcophagus.

3. (Fig. 4) Split, Museum, Inv. 300 A. Sarcophagus from Salona. Set up by Liguria Procilla “quae et Albucia” for herself, her husband C. Albucius, their two sons and her brother. CIL III 2074. M. Rostofzeff, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft im römischen Kaiserreich I, Leipzig 1930, PI. 34, 4; p. 237 : “Büste einer femina stolata”. Photo supplied by Abramic. Kruno Prijatelj, VjesDal LIII, 1951,146, no. 14; 148, Pl. XII (detail).00’ The dates suggested by Rostovtsev (4th c., ca. 400), and Prijaby Mr. Wixom’s description the mantle seems to have been draped differently from those discussed here.

(7) For the terminology see below, note 32.

(8) 1 suspect that a systematic search might produce quite a number of small objects in a variety of media showing a mantle with an “embroidered" border more or less closely related to the pieces discussed here.

(9) See Gabelmann’s description of No. 1 below.

(10) Mentioned (from Prijatelj) by L. Barkóczi, Alba Regia XXII, 1985, 103 (described as “im runden Bildfeld”). See also my dissertation (below, note 17) under Kat. No. 379.

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