Tomb Painting in Chester

Dates

unspecified

Location

Chester

Garden

Tomb Painting in Chester

Garden Description

Toynbee's suggestion that a military tombstone from Chester depicting a row of three gabled buildings with stylized trees or shrubs planted in front of the two at the sides perhaps represents a tomb garden with tomb and flanking funerary buildings, though plausible, cannot in itself be taken to show that tomb gardens existed in Roman Britain; it would, however, suggest that the concept of planting at tombs was regarded as conventionally Roman and appropriate.

Bibliography

• R. P. Wright and I. A. Richmond, Catalogue of the Inscribed and Sculptured Stones in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester (1955) 40 no. 92, pl. 26. (world cat)
• J. M. C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (London 1971) 100. (world cat)

Keywords

• funerary buildings (AAT:300005866)
• tombs (AAT:300005926)

Places

• Cilurnum (Pleiades:89144)
• Chesters (inhabited place) (TGN:7026064)