This urn served as a recipient for the bones and ashes generated by a public incineration ceremony. The round shape at the back of the urn allowed it to be stored in a semicircular niche in the funerary buildings whose rows of such small hollows led them to be called columbari (dovecotes) in modern times. A beautiful detail of its rich relief ornamentation are the two animals on opposite sides of the urn. Under a tree at the right, a dog with a collar raises his leg while, on the left, we see a hare with long ears, a short tail and a thickly furred neck. All that separates the hunting dog from his prey is the relief on the front of the urn. The names inscribed on this vessel indicate that the parents of the deceased child were of Greek origin and therefore from the east or south of the Roman Empire. The father was named Hermes and was probably a surf, while the mother, Helen, was somewhat more important, socially. Her family name indicates that she was a slave freed from the family of Emperor M. Cocceius Nerva (approx. 30 – 98 A.D.) Her son bears all three names: his praenomen and his family name, along with those of Titus Aurelius Boionius Arrius Antoninus (86-161 A.D.), the future emperor Antonius Pius, from whose family he had been freed, and his cognomen is Greek. The urn’s inscription dates it from the late Hadrian or Anthonian period.

Las criaturas de Prometeo: esculturas clásicas del Museo del Prado, Santander, Fundación Marcelino Botín, 2000, p.132