Grave Naiskos of Theogenis with her Mother, Nikomache, and her Brother Nikodemos

Gravestones were frequently carved in the shape of a naiskos, a small building with a triangular pediment supported by pillars. In this example, three figures carved in high relief are identified by a Greek inscription on the narrow, recessed band above their heads. A deceased woman, Theogenis, shakes hands with her seated mother, Nikomache. Her brother, Nikodemos, son of Polyllos, appears between them with a small aryballos (oil container) suspended from his left wrist. Although the relief in its present state commemorates the death of Theogenis, the figures on the relief were re-carved and the inscription changed over time. The sculpture probably served as a funerary monument for a family burial plot and would have been reused as needed. In the 300s B.C., the imagery of Athenian funerary monuments emphasized family unity even after death. The handshake motif, or dexiosis, was a symbolic gesture that could represent a simple farewell, a reunion in the afterlife, or a continuing connection between the deceased and the living.

This relief demonstrates that large-scale works of art, and the wealthy families that commissioned them, were not limited only to the city of Athens itself. The monument originally stood in a cemetery in Attica, the rural hinterland of the large territory controlled by the city of Athens. After it was excavated, the relief was in the collection of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766-1841), who served as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Although no longer visible, traces of the original paint remained on the sculpture when it decorated the Elgin family house in Scotland in the late 1800s.