Dr. Catherine Lomas

It's one of these fantastic creatures that populate these very lively scenes.

Yeah, around 400 slabs, yeah.

In addition to some chamber-painted tombs as well.

Well, when you look at both these slabs, what you can see is a very important feature of Lucanian culture, of the Lucanian people.

In particular here, you realize how important it was for the Lucanian aristocracy, for Lucanian men to be celebrated as warriors, to be commemorated for their militaristic virtue.

Yeah, so you go from a banquet scene, from a sympotic scene, which really commemorates the role of the individual within the polis, within the community.

What you're looking at here instead is how important it was for the Lucanians to commemorate their victories in battle, for example.

So here you see, for example, two warriors fighting.

OK, great.

But over there, what you have is a rider.

You see he's coming back.

He's on his horse.

And what he's holding is a spear.

And you see a trophy.

So he's coming back from battle.

Exactly.

So he comes back.

And so that shows him as a victorious rider.

And in a way also overcoming not just the enemy, but also overcoming death.

Well, yes.