A monumental sarcophagus dating back to the IV century d.C. like this, (preserved in the Vatican Museums) can tell us a lot about the social and cultural situation of Rome at that time. Describing it I can show how a single artifact could display the society which produces it. 

We have in the centre a large shell with the portrait of two men, probably brothers (hence the name "Sarcophagus of the Brothers"). Originally one of the two male figures was a woman. She would, probably, be the bride of the man on the right. Then, perhaps for family reasons, the female figure has been modified with the portrait, always faithful to reality, of these two middle-aged men. Therefore, apart from the degree of naturalism of the bodies and the faces reached by the roman art of the time, it is good to notice another peculiarity: the fact that the space of the composition and so the marble surface of the sarcophagus, is covered with bas-reliefs. A decorative and common mode.

But what is more important is to note the subjects and scenes depicted by means of these reliefs: the stories of the New and Old Testaments. For example, seeing the shell on the front, to its left we see a man stretching out his right arm to receive something from heaven: this is Moses receiving the Tables of the Law (the Old Testament). To the right of the shell, we see a small figure kneeling down: the Sacrifice of Isaac (Old Testament). Continuing, for example, we can see Jesus in front of Pontius Pilate (New Testament). In short, a way to emphasize how the two brothers were convinced christians, enough to want to save their souls and to communicate their faiths even in their last act and image: the sarcophagus. Consequently this extraordinary artifact, which is used to give proper burial to men belonging to a family certainly from the high social class, bears witness to this reality, a crucial moment for the history of Rome: it is, in fact, in the IV century d.C. that, first by Constantine and then Theodosius, Christianity will supplant entirely the old religion polytheistic roman. But already before the official status of christianity as a religion permitted in the Empire, Christianity became more and more popular in many of the social layers of the ancient Rome: from the poor to the nobles, in fact, the new faith took hold. And this sarcophagus is still here to show this evolution, cultural and religious.