A Soter (re)connection. Five fragments of shrouds from Roman Egypt at the British Museum

Abstract

• Five fragments of shrouds, held at the British Museum, were rediscovered in the storerooms of the museum in the late 1970s. The style of their decoration suggests that they were produced in the Theban necropolis during the first or second century AD and that they are probably to be associated with the well-known Soter family. In addition to an in-depth description of these fragments, this article proposes to explore their association with Theban workshops, comparing their style and iconography to the funerary equipment attributed to the Soter family, as well as the extended corpus of material sharing similar features and generally known as “ Soternalia”. It also investigates these shrouds in relation to the known history of the Soter family.