USA 250: President Jackson and the Emperor’s Tomb
Last year, Mary spent nine months in Washington D.C. During this time, she became interested in visual iconography and real objects of Ancient Greece and Rome on display in the city’s museums and streets. In this episode, she tells Charlotte about her fascination with a sarcophagus in the Smithsonian collection, which was believed once to have held the remains of Emperor Alexander Severus. In the 1830s, a US navy commander based in the Mediterranean ‘acquired’ the sarcophagus in Lebanon and sent it back home with the suggestion it could be used as a tomb for President Andrew Jackson. This…
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