Greece & Rome · Imperial period to late antiquity · San Paolo Fuori le Mura, Rome, Lazio, Italy
Imperial Roman tombs decorated with Winged Victories found on Rome's Via Ostiense
Excavations ahead of a student residence found five vaulted tombs, probably columbaria, and a plainer late antique cemetery in a previously unknown sector of the Ostiense Necropolis.
Official announcement
San Paolo Fuori le Mura, Rome, Italy Archaeologists in Rome have found a previously unknown sector of the Ostiense Necropolis, one of the largest burial grounds of ancient Rome. They were working ahead of construction of a student residence in the city's San Paolo Fuori le Mura district. The excavation, beside the ancient Via Ostiense, exposed a group of imperial-period tombs with painted and stucco decoration. The decoration includes images of Winged Victories.
Behind the tombs lay a much plainer cemetery from late antiquity.
Italy's Ministry of Culture announced the find. Diletta Menghinello directed the work on site. She is an archaeologist with the Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma, the state heritage office for the city.
The dig took place under the ministry's preventive archaeology procedures. These require building sites to be checked for remains before construction goes ahead.
The Via Ostiense was one of the consular roads out of Rome. It connected the city with its port at Ostia. The necropolis along it was in use from the late Republic to the Late Empire.
Other parts of the necropolis are already known: the Sepolcreto Ostiense and the Rupe di San Paolo. Both are partly open to visitors.
Five tombs, probably arranged around a courtyard
The team recorded five funerary buildings of imperial date, about one metre below today's street level. They have a quadrangular plan and keep remains of their vaulted roofs. All five are aligned northeast to southwest.
In front of them stand two smaller constructions. These may have had a role in ritual or in organising the space.
A sixth building of similar type is turned at a right angle to the others. Together with rooms still being excavated, it suggests a complex arranged around a central courtyard or open area. The layout points to careful planning. It may also point to a grouping of the tombs by a family or a burial association.
Menghinello said the excavation of the tombs is at a preliminary stage. She said that in all likelihood they are columbaria: burial chambers with niches in the walls to hold cremation urns.
Frescoes, stucco and Winged Victories
Even the parts of the chambers visible so far have fairly elaborate decoration. The walls keep traces of frescoes with coloured bands and plant motifs. There is also stucco work.
Small shrine-like niches show figures common in Roman funerary art. Some are female figures in a posture of prayer. Others are Winged Victories, images connected with the hope of transcendence and triumph over death. A small sculpture was also recovered from the excavated area.
According to Menghinello, further digging could reveal grave goods, inscriptions naming the dead and the original floors. These would add to what is known of burial practice. They would also add to what is known of the social make-up of the groups buried there.
The archaeologists also found an apsidal room and another large brick-built space. Both lie in the sector nearest the line of the ancient road, at greater depth. Both have remains of mosaic floors.
Their purpose has not yet been established. Their form and size may point to cult use. They may also point to the funerary banquets that were held in cemeteries.
A poorer cemetery behind the wall
The layers on the site show the area was used in several phases. In late antiquity, a far more modest cemetery was laid out behind the monumental tombs. By then the tombs may have fallen out of use or been looted. A long wall of small tuff blocks separates the two.
The later graves are simple pits dug into the ground. They are packed closely and cut on top of one another, a sign of intensive use over a long period. They contained few grave goods.
The contrast with the imperial tombs may reflect a change in the economic and social conditions of the people using the cemetery. This change would date to its final centuries.
Plans to protect the tombs and open them to visitors
The culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said the find offers new first-rate evidence from the necropolis. He expressed the wish that the remains be integrated into the new building and opened to visitors, without halting the project.
Daniela Porro, the Soprintendente Speciale di Roma, pointed to the quality of the structures. She also pointed to the orderly arrangement of the funerary spaces and the preserved decoration. She said her office would take the complex under full protection and start a project to make it accessible.
Luigi La Rocca heads the ministry's Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. He said the preventive checks had proved an opportunity for research into the history of Rome.
Researchers will study the structures, and the grave goods and skeletal remains once they are found. This could clarify the extent and internal organisation of the Ostiense Necropolis.
It could also add to physical anthropology and Latin epigraphy. And it could add to the study of the material culture of Rome's middle and lower classes. Their burial places are often less well known than those of the elite.
Sources
- Extensive Area of Tombs Decorated with Winged Victories Discovered in the Imperial Necropolis of the Via Ostiense in Rome (La Brújula Verde)
- Ancient Tombs with Winged Victories Unearthed in Rome’s Vast Ostiense Necropolis (Arkeonews)
- Burials Discovered in Rome's Ostiense Necropolis (Archaeology Magazine)
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