Italy Tourist Destinations: Rome Catacombs
Most of us have heard about Rome’s catacombs at some point in our lives. These are ancient underground burials, dug into the rock under the city of Rome itself. There are more than forty of these catacombs, some of which have only come to light in recent years.
These catacombs are known best as burial places for Christians, but they have also hosted pagan burials as well as Jewish tombs. The catacombs came about around the second century, since there was a minimum of available land for burial and cemeteries were growing overcrowded.
There’s not really enough land around Rome for standard burials, but the soft volcanic rock under the city is remarkably well suited for tunneling. Before it comes into contact with the air, it’s quite soft, hardening later on exposure to air. Many kilometers of tunnels wind their way through the area under the city, and in some places are up to four layers deep.
If you’re interested in early Christian or Jewish art, the catacombs are a must-see, containing the majority of artistic examples of these cultures in Rome before the fourth century or so. There are amazing sculptures and frescoes here.
Originally, Romans cremated the majority of their dead. However, starting around the second century CE, it became popular to bury remains instead, either burnt or unburnt. Christians preferred burial, considering it important for bodily resurrection.
The first big catacombs were carved through the rock outside the city, since laws at the time forbade burials inside the city limits. These were originally used not just for burial, but for memorials and religious celebrations of Christian martyrs, although they were never used for other regular worship.
The forty known catacombs in and around Rome are all build along roads like the Via Appia and Via Ostiense. Named after saints like Calixtus and Sebastian, the catacombs are rumored to contain the bodies of those martyrs.
These Christian excavators built enormous systems of passages, from seven to nineteen meters below the surface of the earth in an area of around two and a half square kilometers. Levels are jointed by narrow steps, and passages are usually about three feet wide and eight feet tall, with burial niches located in the walls.
These relatively small niches contained bodies. Special burial chambers were also built for wealthier Christians. Frescoes and carvings in these tombs made them look much like mainstream Roman ones.
As Christianity rose to a new status as a state religion, burials in the catacombs began to decline and the dead were more often buried in churchyards. The catacombs became used only for the celebration of the deaths of martyrs.
When Rome was sacked by northern invaders, these catacombs were ransacked, and by the tenth century, they were scarcely used, and all holy relics had been moved above ground. After this point, the catacombs were forgotten until the late sixteenth century, when they were rediscovered.
Over the centuries the catacombs have been intermittently explored, though professional studies weren’t published until the nineteenth century. These burial locations now act as an important monument to the early church, and are under the maintenance of the Vatican.