Thus, this couple stand in a material-visual limbo, eternally together on the stone surface and presumably also within the coffin. What their exact funerary beliefs were is uncertain.

On the left, is a more comforting analogy of a happy family: divine mother and daughter, Demeter and Persephone, are reunited after Persephone has spent time in the Underworld with her new husband, Hades. On the left edge, we can also see a sleeping Eros, god of love, peacefully representing death.

On the right is Hermes, the messenger god who may be trying to lead the couple to Hades, seated in the Underworld. But the couple are not ready to depart just yet. Instead, they face one another.

At the centre, we see a husband and wife couple in eastern Greek dress and wearing headdresses that identify them as a priest and priestess of the imperial cult (which honoured the emperor and his family). And that isn’t the only reference to religion!