Sarcophagus Lid in Egyptian Style

ca. 450 BCE

The Phoenician cities were absorbed into the Achaemenid empire from the 6th century BCE. Renowned for the quality of their fleet, Phoenicians were enlisted in the Persian forces when Cambyses II (530–522 BCE) embarked on the conquest of Egypt in 525 BCE and soon adopted the burial traditions they discovered there. Initially reserved for the royal entourage, Phoenician sarcophagi, known as anthropoid due to their rudimentary human form, spread gradually and then underwent Hellenisation through contact with Greek art. The lids thus display a mixture of Egyptian hieratism and Greek naturalism.

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