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A view of a head of Phoenician Ionian Type Anthropoid Sarcophagus, marble handmade, Sidon Lebanon, end of 4th c. B.C. (Fenike İon Tipi Antropoid Lahit'in başının bir görüntüsü, mermer yapımı, Sayda Lübnan, İ.Ö. 4.yy.sonu), Istanbul Archaeology Museums, Istanbul Turkey. In the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BCE, people from the region called themselves Kenaani or Kinaani (Canaanites), although these letters predate the invasion of the Sea Peoples by over a century. Much later, in the 6th century BCE, Hecataeus of Miletus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: -Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix. Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back Cedars of Lebanon as early as the third millennium BCE.
The front of the sarcophagi looked either like a temple or a residential building. The lids of this type of sarcophagi, peculiar to Asia Minor, also show particular form of composition. Here, figures, such as husband and wife, wearing a chiton and chimation, and reclining on a cline by side, or like in the sarcophagus of Claduia Antonia (Sardis) figures symbolizing mother and daughter, are depicted. The columned sarcophagi from ancient sites such as Sidemara/Konya, Sardis (Sard), Nicaea (İznik), Calycadnos (Silifke) are examples of the splendid grave art of Asia Minor in the Roman Imperial Period and workmanship of Docimeion marble workshops. Sarcophagi of this type from the Docimeion Stone quarries with much production in the Roman Imperial Period, seem to have been exported to ancient cities of the whole of the Mediterranean Region, by way of commissioning. This is understood from examples found in the necropoles of ancient cities outside of Anatolia.
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