This huge sarcophagus (it towered high over my 1,92 meters, I think in all it must have been 3,5 meters or so) is from near Konya. Weighing 24 tons, found during the building of a mosque. Roman period, 2nd half of the 3rd century AD. It is called the Sidamara sarcophagus. Cat. 1179.
I trawled the internet and found Sidamara to be a type-name, but I also got the impression that the one you see here is the one that gave its name to the type. I also read that there is another name, “Asiatic sarcophagi”, for a group which is subdivided into Lycian and Sidamara proper. Sidamara was a (small) ancient city of Lycaonia, near the modern village of Ambar, North of the Karaman-Ereğli road, about 35 km west of Ereğlı. The sarcophagus was found in 1900 and brought to Istanbul by Osman Hamdi Bey (painter, ethnologist, archeologist and director of the Imperial Museum in Istanbul since 1881). Since then, the name ‘Sidamara’ is better known as a type-name for some large Roman sarcophagi as for the ancient town itself.
It has decorations on all sides, as well as on strips along the lower and higher border of the main decoration. Over the years I took so many pictures I decided to group them together. The other sarcophagi can be seen in the main gallery that this is a sub-gallery of.