During the Roman Empire lavish marble monuments to the dead were erected to decorate tombs and cemeteries. A group of these memorials, often so opulent that they required considerable economic sacrifice from the families who commissioned them, is catalogued in this volume.

Situates the study of Roman sculpture within the fields of art history, classical archaeology, and Roman studies, presenting technical, scientific, literary, and theoretical approaches.

This is the sixth volume in the Museum’s series of Occasional Papers on Antiquities. Important Roman funerary monuments in the J. Paul Getty Museum’s collection are examined, and much new scholarly research is included. Contributors include Guntram Koch, Henning Wrede, Anne F. Eberle, Susan Walker, and Helga Herdejürgen, Ioanna Spiliopoulou-Donderer, and Klaus Parlasca.

Demonstrates the central significance of rhetoric in ancient responses to and receptions of Roman art.

Explores four key questions around Roman funerary customs that change our view of the society and its values.

Oxbow says: New forms of visual representation entered Egyptian art traditions along with exposure to the Greek world under the Ptolemaic dynasty. The movement towards greater naturalism in art and naturalistic portraiture in particular, had a great impact on Egyptian funerary traditions and became the choice of the local elites.