Ancient Stele

Just as we use tombstones to mark graves and commemorate our dead, so too did ancient civilizations. One way to do so in the ancient world was through the use of steles. A stele is a stone slab, usually decorated in relief and inscribed, that honored the death of a person. Three of the ancient cultures that had implemented the use of the stele were the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. In comparing an example from …

…life (very naturalistic). The Roman stele is, without a doubt, glorifying. The Romans most certainly had an egotistical attitude about them. Why should it surprise anyone to see it within the art that was meant to memorialize them? Comparing these three civilizations has shown that a single element, used in different civilizations, may have the same intended use but the way each civilization goes about using this element can be quite different from one another.