Eine Notgrabung in Alexandria 1900/1901: Das sogenannte Sieglin-Grab in der Nekropole von Gabbari

Abstract

At the turn of the year 1900/1901 the Sieglin Expedition exposed an underground burial complex in Gabbari at the western harbour of Alexandria. In the chamber with the most important burial places, two phases of wall painting were distinguished. The older phase corresponds to wall decoration with umbrella candelabra, which were in use in the Roman world in the late 1st and early 2nd century. The younger one shows Egyptianizing motifs. The datable features are an occasion to trace the development of distinguished tombs in Alexandrian hypogea: Hellenistic kline tombs in aediculated niches became, at the beginning of the imperial period, cist tombs in pilaster-framed niches; these could be arranged as three-tomb chambers. In the 2nd century the tombs were designed as garland sarcophagi surmounted by an arch. The Egyptianizing decor, which also becomes common in this period, suggests a precise knowledge of Egyptian concepts of the afterlife. THowever, the motifs were not chosen with a view to ›rebirth‹, but under the aspect of divine protection for the dead in the tomb, as is also the case with contemporaneous, non-Egyptianizing grave images.