City of the Dead

Author(s): Sarah Yeomans

Source: Archaeology, Vol. 61, No. 4 (July/August 2008), pp. 55-58, 60-62
Published by: Archaeological Institute of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41780388
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City of the Dead

A journey through the catacombs of ancient Rome

by Sarah Yeomans
Only occasiona lly is light let in to

the city s ancient gates and into the

countryside. The first few miles

mitigate the horror of the gloom , and

leading out of Rome are flanked by

'Let them go down quick into hell . .'

then not so much through a window as

imposing walls that surround some

through a hole . You take each step with

caution, as surrounded by deep night ,

of the city's most prestigious homes

and ancient churches. It is hard

you recall the words of Virgil : ' The very

to imagine that underneath these

silence fills the soul with dread .'

- St. Jerome (fourth to

FIFTH CENTURY A.D.)

Following
ofinboth
andandalong
Following modern
steps of bothsteps
Romans,
ancient ancient
theII hike
footmodern
Romans,
hike
the Appian Way, through one of

manicured gardens and well-kept

estates lie hundreds of thousands of

subterranean burials.

Eventually I reach the mid-second

century catacombs of St. Callixtus,
12 miles of galleries with niches
holding as many as half a million
dead. Walking through such galleries

has become a different experience

since the days of St. Jerome. Today,
the entrances to these underground
cemeteries are gated and rigged
with lights. I have come to journey
into the past, rather than connect
with the terrifying underworld. But
at first, breathing the dank air and
the scent of ancient stone in the
labyrinthine corridors, I can easily
imagine what so disturbed the poor
saint more than 1,600 years ago.
Farther on, past the catacombs
of St. Callixtus, I come to the

catacombs of St. Sebastian, with

www.archaeology.org

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55

Entrance to Vigna
Randanini, a rare example
of a Jewish catacomb

dating from the third to

the sixth century a.d.

because it is underlain
by tufa, a volcanic stone
that is soft when it is
first dug, but hardens
over time as it is exposed

to air.

Eventually, "catacomb"
came to refer to all

subterranean burial
structures, whether
Christian or Jewish (up
until the mid-second
century, pagans, for the
most part, cremated
their dead)* Christians

gradually stopped
using catacombs after
Christianity became the
state religion at the end
of the fourth century
a.d* Instead, they began
burying their dead in
or around the churches
more than six miles of galleries that
also date from the second century
a*d* Some galleries have four distinct
levels, one of which is thought to
have been the hiding place for the
remains of Sts* Peter and Paul in the

being built then* By the 12th century,

third century a*d* While these are the

were located, that people once again

became aware of their importance*
Eventually, Bosio explored and

two most popular catacombs and the

ones most easily accessible to tourists,
there are about 70 such sites along the
principle roads leading out of the city;

many catacombs had been forgotten*

It wasn't until the efforts of Anto-

nio Bosio (1575-1629), who scoured

church records and lives of the saints

for clues to where the catacombs

mapped about 30 subterranean galleries, and his life's work, published three

years after his death, was the massive

volume Roma Sotterranea *
comes from the Greek kata

work, the Pontifical Commission for

"by the hollows," and refers to the

Sacred Archaeology was founded in

hollowed- out pits made by removing

stone in the quarries at St . Sebastian
Most catacombs can be found

upkeep of the Christian catacombs*

alongside or very close to the ancient

roads outside the city, in accordance
with a Roman law that the dead could
not be buried inside the pomerium,
the city's religious boundary* This
countryside was ideal for constructing
large galleries and burial niches
56

To build on Bosio's exploratory

The kymbas comeskymbas

word from whichwhich
"catacombs"literally
the literally Greekmeans

ARCHAEOLOGY

1852* It oversaw the excavation and

Over the past 150 years, 40 additional

catacombs have been discovered and

the majority of known sites explored,

excavated, mapped, and conserved*

"Because these were places of

veneration for early Christians since
they contained the remains of martyrs
and saints, many pilgrims like St*

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2008

Jerome came to Rome in the fourth

and fifth centuries," explains Gregory

DiPippo, an American theological

belief that
Christians
werewere
CONTRARY beliefCONTRARY
aa poor,
poor,
that disenfranchised
disenfranchised
TO Christians
THE COMMON

scholar and linguistic expert based in

Rome whom I meet outside the small,

community, the finds from the

catacombs show that some followers

largely unknown Jewish catacomb of

Vigna Randanini Intelligent brown
eyes peer out from a face that seems
younger than his 40 years. He speaks

of the burgeoning religion were

from the highest classes of Roman
society Sifting through the dirt,
archaeologists have found silver and
gold jewelry, engraved gemstones, and
simpler objects from daily life, such as

with a clipped New England accent

and the authority of someone who
has spent years studying theology
and ancient languages at the
Augustinianum, a pontifical university
in Rome "Fortunately for us many
pilgrims itineraries were written
down and documented," he explains
to me/ Archaeologists have followed
these itineraries to locate all major
catacombs, and its safe to assume
that they have all been located/
However, even in the catacombs that
have been extensively explored and
mapped, there likely exist galleries
and perhaps entire levels that have yet
to be discovered, as was the case for
an enigmatic group of mass burials
in the catacombs of Sts Peter and

lamps and vases They also uncovered

impressive polychrome mosaics and
frescoes, some of the only examples of
religious art that exist from the first

three centuries of Christianity

The catacombs were built by

fossores, laborers who specialized
in cutting galleries and carving out

chambers and niches as space was

needed Since catacombs stayed
within the boundaries of the property
under which they lay, the fossores
would sometimes dig second, third,
or even fourth tiers of galleries Many
have remained relatively clear in the
intervening two millennia, but others
are in a precarious condition, leaving

Marcellinus* (See www.archaeology.

the Pontifical Commission with a

org for more on these discoveries)

tremendous amount of dangerous

work exploring and documenting

A Latin inscription written phonetically

in Greek marks the grave of Marcella, the
daughter of Marcellus and Su[...].

them before it is too late Some have

already collapsed
Enter the modem fossori (the

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57

Alberto Marcocci stands

inside a frescoed cubicula

(burial chamber) within

the Vigna Randanini
catacomb. Petronius the

scribe, who lived for

24 years, 4 months, and
15 days, was buried here.

Italian word from

the Latin fossores),
today s front line in

catacomb exploration*
Before a catacomb can
be studied, it might
have to be cleared of
tons of stone, dirt, and

debris. For the past

century and a half,
it has been the job
of the fossori of the
Pontifical Commission

to excavate and stabilize

the ancient galleries so

that archaeologists can

follow safely Rarely
do modern visitors to
the catacombs have an
inkling of what this
work is really like For
the vast majority of us, the work of
the fossori is most evident in the

regularly spaced wall lights and expert

reinforcement that supports the
unstable and perilous vaults*

recorded the exact amount

The of recorded timeofancient

time
a persona theperson
exact Romanslived,
lived, amountdown
down often
to days and, in some cases, even
hours* In a similar fashion, Alberto
Marcocci, a career fossore, remembers

of us who worked in this capacity

rarely thought about the risk,
however* The excitement of being
the first into a chamber after almost
1,800 years made the fear of danger
seem quite far away - we simply
didn't think about it*' Nevertheless,
occasionally the instinct for selfpreservation did assert itself*

He remembers being sent to the

catacombs of the Giordani on the

exactly how long he worked for the

Via Salaria to supervise the demoli-

Pontifical Commission - 41 years

tion of a palazzo to ensure that the

and 42 days* Marcocci, an energetic

catacombs below weren't damaged,

man in his 70s, has joined DiPippo

and me at the Vigna Randanini

and to be on hand in case a new

handiwork* When he speaks, every

being lowered down into the catacombs when one of the walls began
to cave in and the chamber col-

catacomb to show us some of his

emphatic phrase is punctuated with

extravagant arm gestures* And there
are plenty of those as he describes his
career working in Romes cities of the

dead* "Excavating catacombs can be

dangerous work, particularly when
entering into structurally unsound
58

galleries,' * Marcocci tells me* "Those

ARCHAEOLOGY

chamber was revealed* During the

demolition process, Marcocci was

lapsed, almost burying the fossore*

"But you know what?" Marcocci

says, "I have always had the feeling
that we were being protected by the
Christian martyrs, because during

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2008

my entire career working in the catacombs, no one was ever killed "

Officially retired, Marcocci now

employs his skills as a fossore at Vigna

Unfortunately, many who have come

to the catacombs have left evidence of

their visits in the form of graffiti. These

tourists from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and
Fall River, Massachusetts, made their
marks in 1925.

Randanini, which is only accessible

to visitors with special permission
from the owners of the property, and

is in desperate need of conservation*

Although the catacomb is in better
condition today than it was 30 years
ago, largely thanks to Marcocci
and funding from the International
Catacomb Society, the frescoes are
deteriorating from humidity Marcocci
himself has built the supporting
masonry arches that now shore up
points in the catacomb that were in
danger of collapsing*
Used by the Jewish community
between the third and sixth centuries,

cut into the walls of the galleries

so that the bodies of the deceased

could be inserted with the head or

the feet pointing out, as opposed to

the Christian catacombs where the

bodies were placed inside the niches

(also called loculi ) with the side of
the body exposed* "We find these
types of internments in Jewish burial

sites in the Holy Land as well as

Egypt," says DiPippo* Like the loculi
niches, the kokim were sealed with
inscription plates*

the Vigna Randanini catacomb was

excavated on more-or-less a single
level and holds the burials of only

about 7,000 individuals, as opposed

from the copious inscriptions that

cover the catacombs walls* Unlike

in some of Romes largest Christian

official inscriptions on Rome's

ancient monuments, they have a

learned much from the catacomb,

rough, almost homemade quality,

with crooked lines and disparate

to more than half-a-million buried

catacombs* But scholars have

especially about the occupations and

religious practices of Romes Jewish

community The Jewish catacombs

have many of the same structural
characteristics as Christian ones, but
they also have kokim, burial niches
60

about the ancient Jewish

More about community

community
information thehere
here ancient
comes

ARCHAEOLOGY

letter types* The overall effect looks

like shaky handwriting* But despite
their lack of artistic appeal, the

inscriptions reveal a great deal about

the socioeconomic position of the

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2008

people buried in the catacomb/'In

the inscriptions of Vigna Randanini,
we see evidence of a community
that is at least partially assimilated
at a linguistic level into the Roman
culture/' says DiPippo* "Greek phrases
are phonetically transcribed into
Latin, and there are inscriptions
in both languages with spelling
errors and grammatical mistakes *"

Interestingly several of these errors

occur in inscriptions that are
dedicated to scribes, professionals
who presumably would have mastered
the languages they were using. But

DiPippo explains/' We are dealing

with a group of people from a low
economic level of society; They dont
exhibit the level of literacy that we
have come to expect from the upper
classes of Roman society"
As we go through the unlit galleries

of Vigna Randanini, DiPippo often

has to duck his head to get his sixfoot- two -inch frame through some
of the low passageways* Walking
along in the cold, damp tunnel,
we try to ignore what seem to be
excessively large spiders scurrying
above our heads, and instead aim
our flashlights at some of the marble
and terracotta plaques that line the

walls of the ancient galleries* Ahead

of us, unconcerned by the oversized
arachnids, Marcocci is waving his
flashlight enthusiastically, pointing
out some of his favorite inscriptions*
The inscriptions also reveal the lives
and sentiments of individual members
of the community* A poignant one
reads simply:

The baby Marosa

who lived for four years

This inscription is accompanied by

a crudely inscribed image of a shophar,
a special type of horn used on Yom
Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement* "The presence of this image,"
says DiPippo, "indicates that this
child was from a Levitical family, the
priestly class of Jewish people*" This
same inscription also has an inscribed

image of a palm frond - a symbol

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61

found in the Christian catacombs,

representing victory over death
Farther along the corridor,

Tomb marker of the "well-deserving"

Castricius the scribe given by his wife Julia

another inscription - embellished

with an ivy leaf, a symbol of grief,

and a cornucopia, an allusion to the

abundance that the deceased will

partake of in Heaven - reads:

Sirica the mother [made this] for Aster,

her well deserving daughter

Just a few corridors down, an

inscribed plaque with a carved image

of a set of scrolls notes:

Castricius the scribe. Julia

the wife [made this] for

her well-deserving husband

When I ask Marcocci about the

inscriptions in the catacomb under
his care, he grins/They' re all nice," he
says, with a wide flourish of his arm*
"Everyone says nice things about the
dead. She was well- deserving, he was
blameless, etc Its the same today

No one ever goes to a funeral and

hears someone say of the deceased,
'He was a real jerk/ Yet," he continues,
"it is touching to see the devotion
with which the living remember the
dead. It demonstrates the common
characteristics shared by all human
beings, both past and present ,"
62

ARCHAEOLOGY

and I emerge from the cool

As and dampness Marcocci,

dampness
I emerge of theofDiPippo,
the
fromcatacomb,
catacomb, the

the light and heat of the Roman

summer day seem particularly
strong. Just over the hill, the bees on
the estates property hum pleasantly,
and the smell of blooming jasmine
wafts over as we shed our jackets
and hard hats. The bright world of
the living is a sharp contrast to that
of the ancient dead, and yet the
catacombs did not seem to me to be
the world of dread and gloom
experienced by St, Jerome, Armed
with artificial lights, reliable maps,
and a knowledgeable guide, the
modern visitor can focus on the
experience of entering such an

unusual world. However, as I begin

my journey back toward Rome,
I think about how the catacombs
highlight the universality of what
it is to be human, the need to
mourn and remember lost loved

ones, and the need to be

remembered ourselves,

Sarah Yeomans is a journalist and

archaeologist based in Rome and

Washington, D.C. She is abo a certified speleologist for the city of Rome.

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2008