Ivan Foletti The British Museum Casket with Scenes of the Passion: The Easter Liturgy and the Apse of St. John Lateran in Rome In the collection of the British Museum in London are four ivory plaques displaying a cycle of images of the Passion and Resurrection. 1 On the right side of the first one, we find Peter denying Christ, while the left side depicts Pilate washing his hands and the centre shows Christ carrying the cross with the help of Simon of Cyrene (Fig. 1). The second ivory shows Judas hanging from a tree, alongside the Crucifixion. Beside the cross stand Mary, John and Longinus (Fig. 2). The third relief presents the soldiers asleep after the Resurrection and the women at Christ’s tomb (Fig. 3). The final plaque is decorated with a symmetrical composition with Christ at its centre and a pair of apostles on each side. The first disciple on the left touches the wounded side of Christ with his finger, and must therefore be identified as doubting Thomas (Fig. 4). Scholars concur in attributing these ivories to a single Roman workshop, dating it to the years 420-430. 2 This attribution, based on formal considerations, includes the British Museum ivories in a relatively homogeneous group of reliefs characterised by figures which are stocky but executed with Hellenistic refinement. 3 The chronological and geographical limits of this group are furnished by three securely dated works whose geographical provenance is also known: the Diptych of Rufius Probianus (made at Rome after 400 AD), the left panel of the Diptych of the Lampadii (sculpted in the West in the first half of the fifth century), and the Consular Diptych of Flavius Felix (produced at Rome in 428 AD). 4 In light of the great stylistic coherence of the British Museum ivories, vestiges of joints between the panels, and the panels’ identical dimensions, scholars consider them the four sides of a single casket (albeit one which has lost its lid). 5 It is difficult to determine, at this remove, what the casket’s lid might have looked like. It may have been decorated, since the only Roman ivory casket from the era which has survived intact – the Samagher casket – has a decorated lid. 6 Given the 1. Each one measures 7.5 x 9.8 cm. 2. See the recent synthesis by Harley 2007 and Harley 2013. 3. Cf. Volbach 1976, nr. 116, p. 82. 4. Cf. Volbach 1976, nr. 62, pp. 54-55; Volbach 1976, nr. 54, pp. 50-51; Volbach 1976, nr. 2, p. 30. 5. This question has a unanimous answer. Cf. Harley 2007, p. 232; Kötzsche 1979. 6. Cf. Buddensieg 1959; Guarducci 1978; Longhi 2006.