Ipogeo dei Setna

(2nd – mid 1st century BC)

Eight polychrome stone urns that belonged to the Setna family were found by chance in the 1960s in a rectangular hypogeum at Ponticello di Campo, outside Perugia.  They have recently been restored are now beautifully exhibited in a room that replicates their original disposition.  The two main urns have reclining figures of the deceased on their lids:

• The urn of Vel, son of Larth (at the centre of the back wall) has a relief of the sacrifice of Iphigenia.  [King Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to placate Artemis, whom he had offended.   Only then would she send the fair wind that would allow the fleet to set out for Troy.]
  
  

• The urn of Arnth, son of Aule (at the centre of the left wall) has a relief Pelops’ murder of Oenomaus, king of Elis.  [In this myth, Oenomaus routinely challenged his daughter’s suitors to a chariot race and then murdered them when they lost.  Pelops avoided this fate by arranging for the lynch pin of a wheel of Oenomaus’ chariot to be removed.   When the chariot overturned, Pelops completed the murder by hurling the detached wheel at Oenomaus.]

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