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Funerary plaque: women lamenting a dead woman

Collection: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Summary: Prothesis: women lamenting a dead woman
Ware: Attic Black Figure
Context: Perhaps from Athens
Date: 625 AD - 600 AD
Dimensions: H. 0.382 m.; W. 0.393 m
Shape: Funerary plaque
Beazley Number: 3748
Period: Archaic

Decoration Description: Scene of lamentation for the dead. Two women stand at the head and foot of a funeral couch, upon which a dead woman lies. Above the bier, three birds, possibly storks or herons, fly to the right. A siren stands beneath the couch, representing the soul of the deceased.

Collection History: Purchased from the Charles Amos Cummings Fund, February 3, 1927.

Other Bibliography: Chase & Vermeule 1963, fig. 71; Richter 1949, p. 8; H. Kyrieleis, Throne und Klinen (JdI, Ergänz. 24), p. 102 (with added refs.); H. Gropengiesser, AA 1977, pp. 592-593, fig. 15; Vermeule 1979, pp. 18-19, fig. 13; E. Hofstetter, Sirenen im Archaischen und Klassischen Griechenland, pp. 10, 81 (A 55), 88, 192