The Werden Casket Reconsidered

Abstract

ALMOST universally accepted as late antique ivory carving, the group of three panels known as the Werden Casket (Fig. 1) presents a number of problems, both stylistic and iconographic, which have never been satisfactorily resolved. Indeed, because late antique and early Christian monuments survive only sporadically there is little hope for a complete resolution of the iconographic problems connected with them. The attempt to localize iconographic themes has led scholars in the past to construct some startling hypotheses and to ride them roughshod over a midden of discrete styles. As a result, the use of iconography as an indication of provenance has caused the casket to be switched more than once from one side of the Mediterranean to the other, or to different parts of Europe, and has led to a marked confusion of opinion over its date.1