Detail of the front of a relief sarcophagus.
On this sarcophagus the progression of tool types is especially clear and varies across its surface. On the face of this figure the carver used the point chisel to rough it out, then the tooth chisel a little on the face. The staff too was worked with the point and then the tooth chisel. Work on both of these elements stopped at this stage. On the hand and body of the figure, however, point chiselling seems to have been followed directly by flat chiselling. The tooth chisel, in other words, was used but the carver did not progress uniformly from point, through tooth, to flat chisel. Interestingly this carver also decided to work the background with the flat chisel when it is more often flattened with the tooth chisel at Aphrodisias. Even if this feature is not typical at the site, this flexibility of tool usage is characteristic of Aphrodisian carving.
