The Necropolis, already known in the 1800s, was excavated by Guido Calza in the first thirty years of the last century. The core of the uncovered complex develops at the intersection between Via Laurentina and a road running east-west. Dating in its first phase to the Republican era, the necropolis was used until the third century A.D. Continuous water infiltration from underground made it necessary to raise the level of the burial ground, so that the more recent tombs overlapped the older ones, often using their foundations.
The type of constructions adapts to the needs of the cult and reflects the changes in funeral customs and practices. The rite of cremation, prevalent between the end of the Republic and the Claudian age, was gradually supplanted by inhumation with marked variations in the use of the internal spaces of the cells. Particularly varied are the testimonies related to the burial by cremation with monuments made of squared masonry, open-air enclosures, chamber tombs internally occupied by niches intended to house, in terracotta urns, the ashes of the deceased who could be burned directly on site in special enclosures with rounded edges (ustrina). The courtyards often hosted water wells, cooking areas, and benches designated for ceremonies and ritual banquets. As also happens in other necropolises, the gradual prevalence of the inhumation rite over cremation led to a less whimsical and more austere architecture, with the alignment, in the later tombs, generally situated on higher occupation levels, of arcosolia intended to accommodate the deceased, sometimes placed in marble sarcophagi or less precious materials like terracotta.
The necropolis preserves numerous inscriptions concerning the deceased, mostly wealthy freedmen, a class that from the early imperial period increasingly gained economic power, here attested by the refinement of some tombs. Many paintings decorated the tombs, some of which ended up in the Vatican collections and the Archaeological Museum of Ostia. Few remain on site as evidence of that union between architecture and decoration that allows the evaluation of the unity of the project desired by the patrons and to penetrate the customs and beliefs.
Information on Necropolis of Via Laurentina
Viale Dei Romagnoli, 717,
00124 Rome (Rome)
0656358099
ssba-rm@beniculturali.it
https://archeoroma.beniculturali.it/siti-archeologici/ostia/necropoli-via-laurentina
Source: MIBACT
