Hands beneath the dome

At the centre of the large scene sit a man wearing a wreath and a veiled woman. Their hands meet. A standing woman approaches them with a tray. The museum reads the composition as a funerary feast and the couple as an aristocratic deceased man and his wife. This is an interpretation of images, not an inscription naming them.

Notice their different seats: a low couch for the man, a high chair for the woman. The painter has distinguished the central group without leaving it alone. Other figures approach from either side. The joined hands are visible; their precise meaning for the people who commissioned the painting remains a separate question.

A procession surrounds the couple. There are vessels and gifts being carried, musicians and people leading horses. The museum describes saddled horses in the procession. They belong to the large composition around the feast. Another scene with horses awaits us higher up.

The antechamber, meanwhile, shows armed infantrymen and horsemen. According to the museum description, the scenes may depict events from the deceased’s life or commemorative games in his memory. Researcher Rumyana Georgieva also cautions that painted costumes need not copy clothes actually worn. The painting selects how to present people; it is not a photograph of a ceremony.

Look towards the top of the dome. A chariot race is painted there. Each chariot is drawn by two horses. A two-horse chariot of this kind is called a biga. Georgieva describes three young charioteers in long garments. This is a separate frieze, not a continuation of the led horses below.

Beneath the large scene, rosettes alternate with bucrania, decorative images of cattle heads or skulls. Archaeologist Daniela Stoyanova notices differences between their painted horns and eye sockets. These details are decoration, not animal remains. The dome brings several images together; their presence alone cannot give us an exact programme for a historical funeral.