Afterlives

• Only book available on this world-renowned collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Includes new scholarship on the subject by a renowned authority on Greek and Roman art.
• Published in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art and in consultation with their Department of Greek and Roman Art.

In ancient Greece, funerary monuments were visual expressions of mourning that provided the opportunity for the living to commemorate and communicate with the dead.  Today they offer a wealth of information about the deceased and the communities of which they were a part, for example, their status, material aspects of their lives, and how they wanted to be depicted.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has one of the finest collections of Greek funerary monuments outside of Greece. This richly illustrated volume, by renowned author Paul Zanker, presents more than fifty outstanding examples, created from the 7th to the 2nd century B.C., that represent a variety of media and geographical regions. Through their shared focus on memorializing the dead, these extraordinary works of art offer insights into all facets of life in ancient Greece.

Paul Zanker is former Dietrich von Bothmer Distinguished Research Scholar in the Department of Greek and Roman Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is the author of numerous publications, including “The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus,” “Roman Portraits: Sculptures in Stone and Bronze in the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” and “Roman Art: A Guide Through The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Collection.”