Sawn into pieces

On June 1 1834 a report was published about excavations or rather searches performed by Pietro Campana in Ostia. The marquis Pietro Campana worked by order of the bishop of Ostia, cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca. A sarcophagus is mentioned with the Muses, Apollo and Marsyas. It had been found in 1831, somewhere in the necropolis to the south of Ostia. In 1871 it was seen by Adolf Trendelenburg on an estate of the cardinal to the south-west of Rome. He published a description and drawing.

The drawing from 1871. Image: Annali dell'Instituto di Corrispondenza Archeologica 43 (1871), Taf. DE,a.
Click on the image to enlarge.

In 1885 Carl Robert, preparing the corpus of sarcophagi, could no longer find the sarcophagus. He did however locate the two sides, that had been sawn off, at the art dealer Tavazzi. In 1919, when the relevant part of the corpus was published, the sides too had disappeared. In 1982 Huberta Heres (not to be confused with the masonry specialist Thea Heres) identified the front in the Antikensammlung der Staatliche Museen in Berlin. It had been handed over to the museum in 1946-1947 by the "Bergungsamt", charged with the registration of abandoned and ownerless goods.

The front part in Berlin. Photo: Heres 1982, Abb. 1.

The sarcophagus belongs to a small group that is characterized by various trees in the background, reminiscent of the original connection between the Muses and nature at their place of birth, perhaps also of their relationship with the Nymphs. It belongs to the Hadrianic or early-Antonine period.

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