Ein punischer Holzsarkophag (?) im Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseum

Abstract

A Punic Wooden Coffin (?) in the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum

With regard to a wooden object bought from the art trade, the information provided by the dealer as to its provenance seems to be plausible, i. e. centred on Punic Leptis Minor. The fragment traces back to wooden coffins or trunks found especially in Late Classical to Hellenistic contexts. Special attention must be paid to the recognisable joinery techniques of the artefact. On the one hand, they indicate a location for the construction of the piece, its identification and the reconstruction of the receptacle; on the other hand, one of the proven working techniques indicates a handicraft principle rooted in the Eastern Mediterranean or Near Eastern region in the 3rd/2nd millennium BC and which does not appear in the Western Mediterranean area before the second half of the 7th century BC and, following the Roman Republican reception, is known as Punicana coagmenta (Phoenician joints). Therein the mode of production recognisable in the object differs from that of the technical tradition characterised by the Greeks. Closer indications of its geographical origins cannot be extracted from this, since from the 5th/4th century BC the specific know-how belonged to the wood building standard of the whole Mediterranean world.