Stèle

Metz [57] Le musée de La Cour d’Or-Metz Métropole

© Musée de la Cour d’Or –Metz Métropole

Unearthed during work in the former Saint Nicolas hospital, place of the same name. It was was in replacement.
Stele in an elongated rectangle. The top, the right side and the bottom of the legs of the figure on the extreme left are missing. The lintel of the stele, still in place in 1995, has since disappeared, as well as the head of the figure on the far right. The whole is worn, especially the faces. Traces of point and gradine.
Niche with straight lintel and flat bottom. The jamb has no decoration. Four figures, in low relief, are standing and more or less facing. On the far left a man is slightly turned to the right and hinged to the left with his right leg bent. He wears a tunic, with a collar at the neck, which covers him up to the middle of his calves, with large vertical folds. Over it is a long hooded cloak of the paenula type, with V-shaped folds on the chest and straight at the bottom. He is holding a cassette with shelves in his left hand and the right hand is holding one side of the cloak. Next to him is a woman, haunched on the right, with narrow shoulders wearing a long tunic that reaches to the top of the ankles. The collar is close to the neck and the sleeves are long. Her shoulders are covered with a wide drapery of the same length, with oblique folds. His right arm is folded up the side of this garment and the right hand holds a mappa. The left hand holds the right hand of her neighbor. The latter, haunted on the right, is dressed in the same way. On the far right is a man, hanged on the left, who looks to the left. His head is round and his headdress is short. His tunic goes down to the middle of his calves with straight folds. He is also wearing a paenula, with V-shaped folds, which forms a bulge across the abdomen. His right arm, folded against the chest, has the hand that holds a flap of the coat.
The funerary stele concerns two couples. The insufficient width of the monument forced the sculptor to reduce the width of the two women, especially the one on the left. The barrel of the man on the right is 6.5. M.-R. Ormasti dates the stele to the first half of the 2nd century, because of the elongation of the figures, but this particularity is rather used at the end of this century.

Where to find it

Metz [57] Le musée de La Cour d’Or-Metz Métropole
2, rue du Haut-Poirier

57000 METZ

Commune of discovery

Locality

Hôpital Saint-Nicolas

Type of intervention

Excavation

Year of excavation

1988

Chief Scientist

GEBUS, Laurent

Inventory number

95.10.1

Scope

Funeral ➔ Funerary decoration

Materials

Mineral ➔ lapidary ➔ Limestone

Chronological period

Gallo-Roman [- 50 / 476]

Dimensions

H. 106 cm,