A Terra-Cotta Sarcophagus of the Clazomenian Type with a Mythological Scene in the İzmir Archaeological Museum

Year 2025, Issue: 28, 431 - 450, 26.12.2025

Melike Zeren

https://doi.org/10.47589/adalya.1849532

Abstract

This article focuses on the iconographical interpretation of the main scene of a terra-cotta sarcophagus of the Clazomenian type, which is currently housed in the İzmir Archaeological Museum. The scene depicted on the headpiece of the sarcophagus closely resembles the theme of the Boreads saving King Phineus, as recounted in the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes. The story is reflected in vase paintings with stereotypical representations and a very limited scale, although it was widely known in ancient literature through different versions. Even though the subject was not totally foreign to Attic vase painting or other branches of art elsewhere, it was almost unique within the Ionian sphere of art. However, the sarcophagus under discussion in this study has some contradictory aspects as well as some known stereotypical features of the subject. In this study, it is claimed that the subject depicted on the sarcophagus is an original interpretation of the theme of the Boreads saving King Phineus, which is narrated in the Argonautica as a very rare representative of Ionian narrative painting.

Keywords

Argonautica , Phineus , Boreads , Harpies , sarcophagus

Thanks

I thank my colleague and friend, Ufuk Çetinkaya, who provided full support while I was studying the sarcophagus preserved in the İzmir Archaeological Museum. I also thank Dr. İlkan Hasdağlı for translating the text into English.

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