ITALY: Vatican unveils one of world's best preserved necroplis

Record ID: 597759

  • Title: ITALY: Vatican unveils one of world's best preserved necroplis
  • Date: 10th October 2006
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Italian) GIANDOMENICO SPINOLA, DIRECTOR OF EXCAVATION AND RESTORATION WORKS, SAYING: 'We built a modern metallic walkway hanging from the roof that allows visitors to look at the necropolis from above. You can see everything, without stepping on its more delicate parts. Think that there are about 20,000 small graves in this necropolis and, if it wasn't for our
  • Embargoed: 25th October 2006 13:00
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  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVA7J85DMI1HURM8TJYAQ75H2Q65
  • Story Text: Lovers of Roman-era art and archaeology can thank the Vatican's parking problem for the discovery of one of the ancient world's best preserved necropolises -- right inside of the tiny city-state's walls.
    The necropolis was opened to the public on Monday (October 9), three years after it was discovered by workers who were breaking ground for a new garage to ease the Vatican's s dearth of parking space.
    "The excavations carried out (in 2003) to build the new parking lot in Santa Rosa square brought to light an area of about 500 square metres with 250 perfectly preserved Roman tombs dating from the first to the fourth century AD' said Director of the Vatican museums Francesco Buranelli.
    One of the novelties of the necopolis, located along what was the ancient Via Triumphalis (Triumphal Way), is that it offers a mixture of burial sites of both rich and middle class Romans.
    The excavations have brought to light some 40 mausoleums as well as over 200 single tombs arranged on multiple levels - most well preserved and dating to between the end of the 1st century BC to the start of the 4th century AD.
    The Vatican has constructed an intricate web of suspended walkways above the necropolis to allow the visitor to see everything from above.
    "We built a modern metallic walkway hanging from the roof that allows visitors to look at the necropolis from above. You can see everything, without stepping on its more delicate parts. Think that there are about 20,000 small graves in this necropolis and, if it wasn't for our hovering structures we would have had to protect them and therefore hide them. As it is, we don't have to hide anything, we can show everything, from above' ' explained Giandomenico Spinola, Director of Excavation and Restoration works.
    The simple tombs include funerary altars with terracota urns that held ashes of those cremated, lamps, and holes from where garlands were hung. Alongside these are tombs of ordinary middle class Romans, including one of Alcimus, a man of Emperor Nero's entourage and near-by a third century Sarcophagus of Publius Caesilius Victorinus a nobleman believed to be a Christian.
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