Death is an intrinsic part of life. Since death is such an important part to the human experience, it is only natural that the concept finds its way into our art. The vast Byzantine Empire—and its equally impressive visual culture—is no exception to this. This gallery contains three items: a funerary stela, a fragment of a stela, and a ceramic figurine of a mother and child. Each of these objects has a deep connection with grief, spirituality, or the funerary practices of the cultures they come from.

The two funerary stelae were large stone slabs that were used as grave markers. Both come from Egypt, but the differences between them are clear. The ceramic figurine, on the other hand, was excavated from a graveyard at the site of Beth Shean. The three of them tell their own stories individually, ones of religious faith, the grief of those left behind, and the solemn practices that one would undertake to pay respects to the departed. The items in this gallery show us that death was treated similarly throughout the Byzantine world, but each culture, even each person, engaged with the deeply personal practices surrounding death differently.

—Maggie Miller & Evan Morgans