Medieval Ivory Boxes: Myth and Luxury in the Middle Byzantine Period
Channel: 2 Byzantinists: Art History Learning Resources
Date: 15/03/2020

In this video Byzantine Art History Professors Evan Freeman and Anne McClanan discuss two medieval Byzantine ivory and bone boxes now housed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York :
1. Byzantine Ivory Casket with Warriors and Dancers, 11th century,  Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan,  17.190.239 
and
2. Byzantine Bone Casket with Warriors and Mythological Figures,
10th–11th century,  Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 17.190.237 
Video Editor: Anna Weltner
This video is available CC BY 4.0


Object descriptions from Met website:  
for #1 "If perchance you wish to exempt certain pagans from punishment, my Christ,/ May you spare for my sake Plato and Plutarch,/ For both were very close to your laws in both teaching and way of life./ Even if they were unaware that you as God reign over all,/ In this matter only your charity is needed,/ Through which you are willing to save all me while asking nothing in return."
—John Mauropous (ca. 1000–1081)
Classical literature and classical images were preserved throughout the Byzantine period. The erotes who dance and wage mock battles on the sides of this casket and tame a female panther on the lid recall imagery associated with the ancient pagan cult of the god Dionysos.
AND

for Object #2 Bone caskets, used by the Byzantines in their homes, were often decorated with themes from classical antiquity. In the Middle Ages many such caskets reached western Europe, where despite their non-Christian decoration they were used in churches as containers for relics.