Casket

This rectangular shaped casket is formed of thinly sliced ivory plaques fastened together with fine pegs. Three copper-gilt mounts and a rectangular lock plate help to secure the lid to the box. The exterior surface of the casket is ornamented with painted and gilded decoration consisting of vegetal roundels and animals, such as antelopes, spotted leopards and birds. This casket forms a group of two hundred painted ivory caskets attributed to 6th and 7th century AH/12th and 13th century CE, Sicily. In medieval Sicily, raw ivory was imported from West Africa via commercial routes controlled by the Fatimid rulers of Egypt. These ivories were probably produced for members of the Norman nobility who could afford the luxury material from which they were manufactured, and who mixed in circles where an Islamic aesthetic was de rigueur, as it was under Roger II (r.1130-54 CE) and his successors. It would not have been unusual for such nobles to present their precious possessions to churches, where the caskets became reliquaries, which is how they have survived to the present day.