Laon (02) musée d'art et d'archéologie du Pays de Laon
Gilles Mermet - Musée du Pays de Laon
This stele comes from the first known Christian cemetery in Laon.
Ancient and medieval burials could take much simpler forms than the monumental tomb or the grave placed inside the church. The vast majority of the population was buried in simple cemeteries, sometimes in sarcophagi. Erecting a funerary stele already required financial means since it was necessary to pay for the stone and the engraving. Very often, the stele alone constitutes the monument in memory of the deceased. This is the case with this early Christian epitaph from the first Christian cemetery in Laon. It is the funerary stele of a certain Ursacius. The Latin inscription, which surmounts a Chrism accompanied by the Greek letters alpha and omega recalling the beginning and end of the world, reads: VRSACIVS VIVAT IN DEO, "Ursacius lives in God."
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