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Byzantine Bone Casket with Warriors and Mythological Figures, 10th-11th Centuries
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Swordsmen on the front of the casket
Swordsman with small round shield in trousers and round segmented hat. Swordsman with convex shield in tunic and conical segmented helmet with knob.
Casket with Warriors and Mythological Figures
Date: 10th–11th century
Geography: Made in Constantinople
Culture: Byzantine
Medium: Bone plaques and ornamental strips over wood; silver lock plate
Dimensions: Overall: 4 5/8 x 17 1/4 x 7 1/8in. (11.7 x 43.8 x 18.1cm)
Classification: Ivories
Credit Line: Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917
Accession Number: 17.190.237
Provenance: [ George Brauer, Paris (sold to Morgan)]; J. Pierpont Morgan (American), London and New York
Bone caskets, used by the Byzantines in their homes, were often decorated with themes from classical antiquity.
In the Middle Ages many such caskets reached western Europe, where despite their non-Christian decoration they were used in churches as containers for relics.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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Back to the Byzantine Bone Casket with Warriors and Mythological Figures, 10th-11th Centuries, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
See also Baggy trousers on a Bowl with warrior with sword, 9th-10th Century, Nishapur, Iran. Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale, Rome, Italy.
Baggy trousers in the manuscript of the Romance of Varqa and Gulshah, Anatolia, c1250. Topkapi Palace Library, Istanbul, Turkey, Hazine 841.