FUNERARY ALTAR, ROME Alison E. Cooley AEC/ASHL AN2008.47.xml Oxford Ashmolean Museum AN2008.47 AshLI 167

A marble funerary altar 0.66 0.48 0.28. The epitaph is engraved upon the front face. On the right side is a relief depicting a set of weighing scales with a bust as counter-weight. On the left side is a relief of a meat cleaver. The top of the altar includes a cornice, with a frieze of rosettes with garlands hanging between them below this. The base is moulded, with a leaf cornice. There is some damage on the front left corner, where the top edge has suffered chipping. On the base section, to both right and left sides, there is a section in the middle that has been cut away with a small circular hole (perhaps related to the altar’s display in the post-classical period). In alignment with these small holes are further similar small holes inserted into the moulding around the relief, in the centre top. The top surface is smooth, whilst the rear is roughly finished.

The inscription is engraved upon the front face, within a moulded frame.

 0.03 (line 1), with tall I 0.04; 0.025 (line 2); 0.023 (line 3); 0.024 (line 4); 0.025 (line 5); 0.022 (line 6); 0.02 (line 7), with tall I; 0.018 (line 8). The lettering is centred on several lines. possibly late first/second century AD (use of DM formula/ tria nomina) This altar was brought to England in the 1700s. By 1785 it suppported a marble statue near the entrance to ‘Pope’s Grotto’, in Twickenham (Middlesex), a picturesque feature built beneath the riverside villa of poet Alexander Pope (1688-1744), which was begun in the 1720s and continued to be modified and enhanced further until Pope’s death in 1744. It seems that the altar and statue were not a feature of Pope’s own design, but were added after the residence was acquired by Sir William Stanhope in 1745. He created a new feature, which became known as ‘Stanhope’s Cave’, and also added other classical antiquities to the grotto’s entrance (Beckles Willson 1998). The altar and a transcription of its inscription can be seen on a drawing of 1785 by Samuel Lewis (Beckles Willson 1998: Fig. 13; n36; Ironside: 1797, pl. VII, transcription on p.81). It is not known at what point the altar then left the site, but it is likely that it was removed by Baroness Howe who from 1807 attempted to deter visitors from coming to the grotto by removing its decorations and altering the garden. The altar was accepted by HM government in lieu of tax on the estate of Sir Howard Colvin (Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities MS. Accession Register 2008.47). It is currently on display in The David and Margita Wheeler Gallery. Photograph Photograph Photograph Photograph
diis manibus Istimennia Publi filia Primigenia sibi et Publio Murrio Primo coniugi suo et libertis libertabusque posterisque eorum

To the spirits of the dead. Istimennia Primigenia, daughter of Publius, for herself and to Publius Murrius Primus, her husband, and for their freedmen and freedwomen, and for their descendants.

IS°TIMENNIA R MVRRIO PRIMO CONIVGO SVO (Lewis 1785)

The reliefs on either side of this funerary altar suggest that it is an example of funerary commemoration that alludes to the deceased’s occupation, even though this is not mentioned explicitly in the epitaph itself. Both the meat cleaver on the left and the set of scales on the right suggest a role as butcher (compare Zimmer 1982: pp.93-106 nos 1-17, especially no.2 and no.4 which include both cleaver and scales). Such occupational alllusions are typical of funerary altars and reliefs of the mid-first to second centuries AD.

Lewis 1785 (Beckles Willson 1998: Fig. 13; n.36); Ashmolean Museum Department of Antiquities MS. Accession Register 2008.47

Beckles Willson A. 1998 Alexander Pope's Grotto in Twickenham Garden History 26.1 31-59 Ironside E 1797 The History and Antiquities of Twickenham London John Nichols Zimmer G. 1982 Römische Berufsdarstellungen Berlin Gebr. Mann Verlag/ Archäologische Forschungen vol. 12