Sometimes the thing sitting in plain sight is exactly what it looks like.
At Blenheim Palace in England, a marble-fronted tub used as a tulip pot turned out to be part of a real ancient Roman sarcophagus dating to about the third century CE. Palace staff and conservators revealed the find in 2017 after the carved marble panel had spent nearly two centuries as a garden ornament, first as a water feature and later as a planter.
The artifact, now known as the Blenheim Sarcophagus, was once part of an elaborate stone coffin made for a wealthy Roman. The marble panel is the only surviving part of the sarcophagus. After it was removed from the tub, it measured about 2 metres long and weighed close to 400 kilograms.
“The piece is actually in remarkable condition considering it has withstood seemingly aggressive environments; particularly that of a fountain receptacle,” said conservator Nicholas Banfield of Cliveden Conservation, who oversaw the restoration.
“Following an initial in-situ inspection, we were able to unbolt it from the lead cistern to which it was attached and take it back to our workshops for full cleaning, repair, and stabilization.”
It has now been restored and put on display indoors at the palace.
The sarcophagus was not unknown to scholars. Classicist Zahra Newby of Warwick University discussed it in a book chapter on portraiture on Roman sarcophagi. Its bas-relief carving shows a drunken Dionysus with Hercules and Ariadne, flanked by lion heads.
“An example in Blenheim shows the drunken Dionysus standing in the center of the sarcophagus…” she wrote.
References to the object go back centuries. The scene was sketched by the Italian artist Battista Franco Veneziano before 1530, and that sketch is now at the Städel Museum in Germany. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States also holds a 16th-century sketch of the sarcophagus attributed to an unknown artist. Adolf Michaelis included it in his 1882 book Ancient Marbles in Great Britain.
In 2010, an anonymous visitor posted a photo of it in the Blenheim grounds on TripAdvisor with the caption, “a flower bed that looks like a Roman lenos sarcophagus”.
A lenos sarcophagus is shaped like a bathtub. According to media reports in 2017, Blenheim Palace did not know its provenance until an antiquities expert visiting on other business in 2016 urged staff to investigate.
Experts reportedly put its value at £300,000, or US$400,000 at the exchange rate at the time of writing.
Ancient historian and archaeologist Christopher Dickenson of Oxford University said many people who recognised it likely assumed the palace already knew what it was.
“The truth must surely be that everybody who saw it and recognized it simply assumed that the people at Blenheim were fully aware what it was,” Dickenson wrote.
“That was certainly my assumption.”
Blenheim Palace House Manager Kate Ballenger said the move indoors should help preserve it.
“Now it is in a consistent indoor climate away from the natural elements, we are hoping it will remain in good condition and survive for many more centuries to come,” she said.
The object is only known to have come into the hands of the 5th Duke of Marlborough sometime in the 19th century. How he acquired it, and when, may never be discovered.
Read more from Science Alert.
