# Animation of the Seikilos epitaph > A 3:20 illustrated animation about the Seikilos epitaph, which Claude Fable 5.5 chose when asked for something about humanity it finds inspiring or delightful. All art and music were made in JavaScript in one 200 KB HTML file. - Kind: Video - Page: https://meetreference.com/v/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/ - Ready-to-use agent handoff: https://meetreference.com/v/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/agent.txt - Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/prompt.txt - Authorship: Not stated - Made with: Claude.ai - Model: Claude Fable 5.5 - Built with: Plain JavaScript, HTML and CSS - Style: Illustrated; illustrated, ancient greece, history, procedural art, generated soundtrack, single html file - Length and format: 3 min, 16:9 (1280x720 source) - Shared by @YanqingCheng in X, Oct 2, 2026: https://x.com/YanqingCheng/status/2106158746938269728 - Prompt fidelity: Verbatim. This is the complete prompt exactly as the creator published it. ## Before you start Guidance from Reference, separate from the creator's instructions. 1. Read the reference and inspect the project, installed libraries, and available agent skills before writing code. Reuse suitable tools already present. 2. Prefer the creator-reported libraries and skills when they fit the task. Explain what useful additions help with, and install missing project dependencies or relevant skills from official sources when the environment and the user's existing permissions allow it. Respect the project's package manager and setup rules; do not ask again for routine setup already authorized. 3. Distinguish tools used by the creator from your own recommendations. A listed tool is not automatically required, and an empty tools or requirements list means the setup is unknown, not that nothing is needed. 4. Ask concise questions when missing inputs or choices materially affect the result: paid services, credentials, the user's assets, or a different production approach. Use existing answers and permissions; continue independent work while waiting. 5. If a useful library, skill, or service cannot be installed or used, explain an available alternative and its expected effect on quality, features, or effort. Get the user's choice before a material compromise; otherwise state the fallback and continue. Never silently simplify the result or claim to have used a tool you did not use. ## Recreating this video These are the creator's published instructions, unedited. To adapt it: Keep the open brief, or narrow "a topic from humanity that you think is fantastic" to your own subject; the line "think of this as your chance to showcase your personality" is what leaves the choices to the model. ## Prompt ```text nice to meet you! I would love for you to produce a wonderful javascript illustrated animation about a topic from humanity that you think is fantastic, with whatever soundtrack and composition and motion design and art style you like - think of this as your chance to showcase your personality to the world, and to tell them about something that inspires or delights you. ``` ## What it looks like Written by Reference from the video frames, not by the creator. A quiet flat-illustrated history of the Seikilos stele, told in captions: the stone being carved, set up, rediscovered in 1883, rescued in 1922, and its Greek line translated. - Color: Muted dusk blues and violets, warm cream stone, terracotta and burnt orange for the 1922 scene, dark cypress greens, and soft gold for the glowing Greek letters. - Type: Small centred serif captions at the bottom of each frame, serif date titles (AD 1883, AD 1922), and carved Greek capitals on the column with musical signs above them. - Framing: 16:9 frames that alternate close-ups of the marble column with wide silhouetted landscapes of cypresses, a steam train and a house; the column is usually centred. - Structure: A chisel carving letters, the signs above the words, the stone set on a hill at dusk, AD 1883 and the engineer Edward Purser taking it home, a paper rubbing, AD 1922 and Smyrna burning, the line "While you live, shine" in glowing Greek, the stone under stars, and a last card for ζῆ, "Is alive." Storyboard, nine frames spread across the video: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/storyboard.webp - Frame 1 at 11.1s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f1.webp - Frame 2 at 33.4s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f2.webp - Frame 3 at 55.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f3.webp - Frame 4 at 77.9s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f4.webp - Frame 5 at 100.2s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f5.webp - Frame 6 at 122.4s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f6.webp - Frame 7 at 144.7s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f7.webp - Frame 8 at 167.0s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f8.webp - Frame 9 at 189.2s: https://meetreference.com/media/animation-about-seikilos-epitaph/f9.webp ## How it was made, per the creator - One-shot: yes, a single prompt with no follow-ups - Agent time: A couple of hours - Notes: Run with max reasoning in the Claude.ai chat agent sandbox, one shot, the creator says. All art and music were created in JavaScript in one 200 KB HTML file. Claude also wrote notes on the project and its own translation of the epitaph. > all art and music created directly in javascript, in one 200kb html file. > (@YanqingCheng) ## Links - Watch: https://x.com/YanqingCheng/status/2106158746938269728 - Original post: https://x.com/YanqingCheng/status/2106158746938269728