La Necropolis, already known in the 19th century, was excavated by Guido Calza in the first thirty years of the last century. The core of the complex brought to light develops at the intersection between Via Laurentina and a road running east-west. Dating back in its first phase to the Republican age, the necropolis was used until the third century AD. Continuous water infiltrations from underground made it necessary to raise the level of the burial ground, so that the more recent tombs overlapped the older ones, often exploiting their foundations.
The type of constructions adapts to the needs of the cult and reflects the changing funeral customs and traditions. The rite of cremation, prevalent between the end of the Republic and the Claudian age, was gradually replaced by that of inhumation with striking changes in the use of the interior spaces of the cells. Particularly varied are the testimonies related to cremation burial with monuments in squared masonry, open-air enclosures, chamber tombs internally occupied by niches intended to hold, 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 housed wells for water, platforms for cooking food, and benches intended for ceremonies and ritual banquets. As happens in other necropolises, the gradual prevalence of the inhumation rite over the cremation one led to a less capricious and more severe architecture, with the alignment, in the latest tombs, generally located on higher occupation levels, of arcosolia intended to accommodate the deceased, sometimes deposited in marble sarcophagi or in less precious materials such as terracotta.
The necropolis preserves numerous inscriptions related to the deceased, mostly wealthy freedmen, a class that from the first imperial period increasingly assumed economic power, here testified by the refinement of some burials. Many paintings decorated the tombs, some of which have been collected into the Vatican collections and the Archaeological Museum of Ostia. Few remain on site as evidence of that union between architecture and decoration which allows to evaluate the unity of the project desired by the commissioners and to penetrate into usages 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
