Description
| ITEM | Ossuary with lid |
| MATERIAL | Limestone |
| CULTURE | Late Hellenistic / Early Roman, North Africa |
| PERIOD | 3rd Century B.C – 1st Century A.D |
| DIMENSIONS | 215 mm x 265 mm x 210 mm |
| CONDITION | Good condition |
| PROVENANCE | Ex French private collection, Liliane et Jean-Pierre Léveilley, acquired between 1970 – 2000 |
A Roman ossuary is a container or structure used to hold the bones of the deceased, often employed in funerary practices where space and custom favored the secondary burial of skeletal remains. While ossuaries are more famously associated with Jewish burial traditions in Roman Judea, similar practices were present in the broader Roman world, particularly in areas influenced by Hellenistic and Eastern customs. In the Roman context, an ossuary might take the form of a stone box, urn, or ceramic vessel, typically used after the body had decayed and the bones were collected for permanent storage.
These containers were often elaborately decorated or inscribed with the names of the deceased, religious symbols, or commemorative texts, reflecting both personal identity and belief systems concerning the afterlife. In regions like Judea during the 1st century BCE to the 1st century CE, ossuaries were commonly carved from local limestone and bore inscriptions in Greek, Latin, or Aramaic. Their use suggests a complex interplay between Roman funerary laws, Jewish purification practices, and broader Greco-Roman mortuary traditions.
