Try Amazon Fresh


Try Amazon Audible Plus



Selected plaques on a

Byzantine Bone Casket with Warriors and Mythological Figures, 10th-11th Centuries
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York


Classical Byzantine cavalryman on the 1st plaque on the casket top.



Byzantine cavalryman on the
2nd plaque on the casket top.

Byzantine cavalryman on the 3rd plaque on the casket top.



Swordsmen on the front of the casket

Byzantine armoured cavalryman
on the 2nd plaque on a
long side of the casket.

Swordsman and dancer on the rear of the casket

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



Other Byzantine resources:
A Byzantine Casket, 10th-11th century, Musée National du Moyen Âge, Paris, France
Byzantine Frescoes of Saints George and Merkourios, Church of Aghios Yeorgios, Belisarama, Cappadocia, Turkey, 10th-11th century
Byzantine Fresco of Saint George, Sümbüllü kilise, Hasan Dağı, Cappadocia, Turkey, 10th-11th century
Saints Mercurios, Theodore Tiron, Demetrios and Prokopius as military saints, Hosios Loukas Monastery, Boeotia, Greece, early 11th century
Manuscript Illustration of Iohannes, a 'Proximos' with the court rank of 'Protospathários'. Armenian Adrianople Gospel, c. 1007, Mechitarist Library, Venice.
Other Byzantine Iluustrations of Costume and Soldiers
Other 10th century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers