The figurative frieze, exceptional for a cinerary vessel, is divided into three successive scenes from left to right. In the first, a young Heracles and a bearded priest appear facing each other in profile, intent on a sacrifice: the hero holds a cup or loaves of bread in his left hand and with the other holds a piglet sprinkled with lustral water by the priest who holds a plate of offerings in his left. The scene introduces the story of the initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries that Heracles underwent in order to face the descent into Hades to capture Cerberus. In the following scene Heracles sits with his head bowed and his face covered by a cloak; his left arm holds a torch, his right foot rests on the horn of the ram sacrificed to the underworld divinities. Behind him, a priestess holds the sieve for sifting grain for purification purposes suspended over her head. In the final scene, another young man, identified as Dionysus-Iacus, appears in Heracles' place. The god extends his arm to caress the head of a snake on the lap of a female divinity seated opposite. The goddess's hair is crowned with ears of corn, according to the iconography of Demeter-Cerae. She holds a torch and turns back as her daughter Kore appears, who is advancing with a torch in her left hand, while with the other she points a finger towards the ground and in the background is a monumental censer. The scenes have been interpreted as the three degrees of initiation (katharsis, myesis, epopteia), at the completion of which the initiate, in a mystical identification with the god, enters the presence of the goddess, becoming aware of the mystery that encloses and passes on the creative energies of life.
Found in July 1876 in the Columbarium of the freedmen of the gens Statilia, in the Porta Maggiore area.