Recherches sur les sépultures paléochrétiennes en sarcophage (Occident, IVe-VIe siècles)

The paper gives a short presentation of a Habilitationschrift (Göttingen, 2001), published in autumn 2003, on “Sarkophagbestattungen des 4.-6. Jhs. im Westen des Römischen Reiches”. The author examines a corpus of sarcophagi (with inscriptions), ranging from the 3rd to 5th centuries, in order to study their ordinatores as a social body and to understand the ideological and religious significance of the use of sarcophagi rather than other type of burial. Many aspects of these questions are taken into account, like the distribution of the deceased according to gender and age, the social, ideological and religious meanings of the funerary iconography, the question of the visibility of both images and inscriptions and the availability of sarcophagi as semi-manufactured products. [Redaction]