La tomba di Edipo a Beit Tamer in Cirenaica

A tomb at Beit Tamer, about 40 km east of Cyrene on the road to Derna, is presented. It is a single large rock-cut room. It has a bare rectangular opening, with no architectural decoration on the facade, in the western wall of a quarry. The tomb is noteworthy for its pictorial decoration, especially for a series of depictions from the epic cycles used as exempla. Among them are clearly legible Ajax and Cassandra, Oedipus and the Sphinx, Aeneas and Anchises, the torment of Ixion, the punishment of Sisyphus, the body of Hector carried by Achilles; the meaning of these scenes in a funerary context is investigated.