Suburani

19. LACRIMAE

WEBLINKS

IMAGE GALLERY

The remains of a building. It now has no roof and the walls are only about half the original height. The walls are made of brick and there are arched niches lining the inside walls.

A columbarium at Ostia.

Four small rectangular slabs of stone with a circular head at the top. On it is carved words in capital letters. They are half buried in the earth adn stand upright.

Stylized busts, called columellae, marked the site where urns containing the ashes of the dead were buried. These were found at Pompeii.

A mosaic illustrated with animals along the River Nile. There are ducks, snakes, and cranes, as well as smaller birds and insects. In the centre there is a crocodile and a hippopotamus.

A mosaic from the House of the Faun, depicting a scene of the River Nile in Egypt.

A statue of a woman. She has braided hair tied back from her face. She is wearing a light dress through which you can see the curves of her body. Her right hand is raised and her left hangs by her side holding an object.

A marble statue of Isis which was found in the portico of the Temple of Isis in Pompeii. In her left hand she holds an ankht, the symbol of life. Her right hand would have held a sistrum, which is now missing. Many traces of colour remain on the surface.

A metal rattle with a handle and a curved head like a large needle through which three hooked pieces of metal lie.

A bronze sistrum. It was shaken to make a jingling noise during ceremonies, to ward off evil. Statues of Isis often depict her holding a sistrum and many sistra have been found in Pompeii.

A wall painting showing a woman on the right sitting wearing a white dress and a crown. A snake is wrapping itself round her left arm. Her right hand is outstretched to another woman who is sitting on the shoulders of a topless man.

A wall painting from the Ekklesiasterion, showing Isis welcoming the Greek princess Io in Egypt. Isis is shown holding a snake, with a crocodile at her feet, both symbolic of her Egyptian origins.

The remains of a temple. At the front are steps leading up and one either side of the front of the building are pillars. There is still some paint visisble on the outside of the building.

The temple of Isis at Pompeii as it looks today.

A wide, narrow piece of stone on which is carved Latin in very neat capital letters.

A silver cup decorated with images of skeletons. On this side two skeletons face each other across a small table. By the bottom right of the table is a piglet. Above their heads hangs a garland of flowers.

This silver cup was found at a villa at Boscoreale, just outside Pompeii. It is decorated with a ring of skeletons of famous Greek poets and philosophers, including Sophocles, Euripides, and Epicurus. Also engraved in Greek are Epicurean maxims including ‘Enjoy life while you can, for tomorrow is uncertain’, and ‘The goal of life is pleasure’. The decoration and wording were not meant to be spooky or morbid, but instead reminded drinkers to enjoy life to the full.

A stone slab with capital letters neatly marked on it. In the centre is a circlar hollow with a hole at the bottom. The is also a stone lid to cover this hollow.

A stone grave marker which would have lain on top of the tomb. It was dedicated to a woman called Tyrannia by her husband. The hole in the centre allowed libations of milk, honey, wine, or oil to be poured into the tomb as offerings to the deceased.