NARRATOR: Narrative events from the apocryphal life of Saint Peter are joined on the front of this sarcophagus with stories from the life of Christ.

Look at the different carving styles. The scenes with Saint Peter are boldly carved in deep relief, the style of the early fourth century. The scenes relating to Christ are much flatter and less dramatically carved; they are, in fact, restored from the knees up. One easy way to tell the restored area is to note that Christ appears as a bearded man—an image that did not exist in the fourth century, when he was always shown beardless with curly hair.

On the sides, events from the Old Testament are carved in low relief.

Helen Evans is a curator specializing in Byzantine art at the Metropolitan.

HELEN EVANS: It’s important in looking at these sarcophagi, to think of them in a way as a sermon in stone. And if you look at these two scenes, and look at them in relationship to the shape of the sarcophagus, you will see that the dominant figures, their heads jut forward out from under the lip at the top of the sarcophagus. And you have something that brings you into the space of these two scenes.

And so you have to resurrect in your own mind, or recreate in your own mind, an entire front that would have been as teeming with life, and as dramatically telling you that you can be saved by this man who entered Jerusalem, died for your sins, and that by your presence in Rome where Peter is, you have a particularly good connection to heaven when you arrive there.