In funeral, generally, we use a funerary box, known as coffin, in order to display and contain the dead body. Coffin, comes from Greek word, kopina, which means basket (Lewis 2010). In earlier years before century, a coffin is included as an art that used to tribute loyal family such as king, queen, or God. This box that crafted before centuries is called sarcophagus. Sarcophagus comes from Greek words sarx, means “flesh” and phagein, means “to eat”. Mostly, sarcophagus is made from stone. This is because the artisan wanted it to be last long and be memorable. There are a lot of different kinds of sarcophagus that have been made in before centuries. The shape, size, and what specific stone it used to make the sarcophagus are depends on the culture of where it has been made. In University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, there are two examples of sarcophagus with different style and shapes. Those are the Egyptian sarcophagus and Italian sarcophagus.
Egyptian sarcophagus displayed on the museum is made from a limestone. This sarcophagus was crafted around 200 – 190 BC. According to the museum, it came from “Ptolemaic culture”. This sarcophagus was crafted by “Pedibast” to honor the third generation of the king in early 30th century. This Egyptian sarcophagus has about “6.5 feet on height, 2 feet width and about 1.5 feet in depth”. The shape is following human body which will leave only a plenty spot once a corpse is put inside. Beneath the man, there is a square box which made as a base of the sculpture so it can be in standing position. It has dark color, almost black, and finely polished. This sarcophagus is still in good condition. It can be looked by the perfect shape of the lid and there is no crack on the polish. When I tried to touch it, it felt smooth, not like regular stone. It does not look natural for me, because it has too many abstract shapes such as n hands and shapeless feet. The only natural part is the face where it shows no expression at all. As usual, there are few things that can help us to realize that this particular sarcophagus was made for royal family. On the top part of the lid, it has the headdress and unique beard that we always see within Egyptian culture. Those represent the status of royal member. The entire body was covered with many lines(7 lines according the museum record). Between lines, it has pictures of Isis (snake and human), Nepthys, Osiris (king’s mummy), horse, campfire and men with spears. It seems telling us about the story of what happened during that time. According to Davies et all¸(2010), Egyptians believe that sarcophagus will become new kingdom for the dead king (p. 53).
The second sarcophagus that I have seen in University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology comes from Italia. It has the Etruscan style of crafting which can be seen by the high artistic shape and the elegancy of the sculpture. So many details used in Etruscan style of crafting in order to represent the information that reveal glimpses of Etruscan life, especially their religiosity. The sarcophagus is called “The Reclining Man”. The sarcophagus was made in around 299 – 200 BC. It carved from a specific type of limestone called Tufa, a limestone that formed by precipitation of carbonate minerals from a certain level of temperature of water. This is representing the kingdom of water in underworld. To strengthen my explanation, the crafter also put two sea dragons on the front part of the sarcophagus as the guardians of the sea. This sarcophagus is about 2 feet height, 6.5 feet length and 2 feet width. Unfortunately, it is not in good condition. On the lid, the sarcophagus has a crafted man in reclining position. The man was so natural and details which make it in perfect human shape. The man is wearing garment that represent the royal members as we see in Rome, covering the entire lower body and goes across one of the shoulder. To be more details, the crafter added crease on the garment. Similar to Egyptian style, Etruscan style put no expression on the face. This Etruscan sarcophagus is more natural than the Egyptian. The crafter left the stone on its shape, rough and has some holes which I believe from the precipitation. As we all know, Etruscan art usually covered with paints. The sarcophagus has lost it and we barely can see it. If we look carefully, we will be able to see a spot or two of the colors within the body. For example, the garment has a few red dots from paints.
From my opinion, Egyptian and the Italian / Etruscan Sarcophagus have some similarities and differences. The similarities are where both faces has no expression and the mouth is nearly smile. Secondly, the representation of the sculpture. Both sculptures represent that the sarcophagus was created to honor the royal members but in different way. Egyptian with the headdress and square beard while the Etruscan with the reclining man with its garment on top of the two sea dragons. These two sarcophagus also have almost the same size However, the differences between the two sculptures are even more. The Etruscan is more naturalistic than the Egyptian. It has a perfect human shape along with the colors although we can barely see it due to the condition. Egyptian also was polished too much that it lost the naturalistic of the stone. The shape is also different. Most of Egyptian sarcophagus is in human body shape along with the lid with standing position. While the Etruscan has a box shape on beneath and put the human sculpture on top of the lid. They also different in how they tell the story of the sculpture. Etruscan uses the story representations as the decoration where each of them represents one thing. The Egyptian uses small pictures that covered the body to the story line of the Egyptian life.