(Click on the image for an enlarged view.) Two adult lions lick their cubs. The lioness gives birth to dead cubs, which remain inanimate until their father arrives after three days and breathes in their faces. Many characteristics of lions link them allegorically to Christ, and this particular trait symbolises Christ’s resurrection on his third day in the tomb. The image of the lions licking rather than breathing upon their cubs may draw upon Pliny’s Historia naturalis, which states that lions’ cubs are born unformed and must be licked into shape