When sitting in the comfort of your design hotel, Rome may seem to be one of the world's most sophisticated and comfortable cities. Of course, it certainly is, but in the past aspects of the city were perhaps rather stranger than we are familiar with today when faced with the luxuries of a design hotel. Rome has one particular example in its famous and fascinating catacombs.
What is a catacomb?
In the earlier and pre-Christian Roman period, the original Roman practice was to cremate their dead, keeping the ashes in urns in a small shrine where occasionally prayers would be said in honour of ancestors. There are many advantages, in a purely practical sense, to such practice. In any situation where land is relatively scarce and may be needed for agriculture or grazing, allocating significant territories to inhumation (the practice of burying the dead) may be seen as being extravagant and a huge consumption of resources. In early times that would certainly have been the case and, in addition, the vast majority of society would have been exceedingly poor and therefore unable to afford to purchase land for conventional burials. However, even some of the cremated remains may have been stored in rock-hewn shrine locations, and this practice of digging into rock in relation to the dead was an ancient practice originating from the earliest and even pre-Roman periods. Though such rock resting places were not yet catacombs, in a sense the precedent had been set.
Roman practices change
Historians and archaeologists are not entirely sure why, but even in the pre-Christian era, the fashion for burials began to change and the Romans started burying the whole body in coffins and unburned.
Given that Roman law forbade the burial of bodies within the precincts of a city, this meant that shrines and burial places began to be developed on a larger scale in areas outside of city walls.
Looking out on the endless vista from the windows of your design hotel, Rome may seem a vast city but, by our standards, during the classic period, it would have seemed moderately small in geographic within-the-walls terms. What that meant was that people from the city precincts could reasonably easily reach outlying cemeteries in the suburbs or surrounding countryside (today regarded as being part of Rome proper); but there remained a fundamental problem.
Surface level burial plots would have remained relatively expensive, given that they were still consuming precious land. They would have been beyond the reach of many ordinary Romans and, as a result, as burial fashions changed poorer Romans started digging down and horizontally in order to bury their dead. These underground burial chambers became vast and are today known as the catacombs.
Catacombs and early Christians
In popular imagery, the catacombs are forever associated with persecuted Christians. In fact, although they played a very important part in providing sanctuary for Christians during times of persecutions, they were also used by non-Christian Romans and there are even several Jewish catacombs. Today, many are open for inspection. Some of them contain beautiful representations and paintings of Roman and early Christian life and are a fascinating insight into the practices of our ancestors.
Inevitably, they offer a very different view of the world to that of a design hotel. Rome is like that though: it's a beautiful city of ancient contrasts - and that is what makes it so exciting.
What is a catacomb?
In the earlier and pre-Christian Roman period, the original Roman practice was to cremate their dead, keeping the ashes in urns in a small shrine where occasionally prayers would be said in honour of ancestors. There are many advantages, in a purely practical sense, to such practice. In any situation where land is relatively scarce and may be needed for agriculture or grazing, allocating significant territories to inhumation (the practice of burying the dead) may be seen as being extravagant and a huge consumption of resources. In early times that would certainly have been the case and, in addition, the vast majority of society would have been exceedingly poor and therefore unable to afford to purchase land for conventional burials. However, even some of the cremated remains may have been stored in rock-hewn shrine locations, and this practice of digging into rock in relation to the dead was an ancient practice originating from the earliest and even pre-Roman periods. Though such rock resting places were not yet catacombs, in a sense the precedent had been set.
Roman practices change
Historians and archaeologists are not entirely sure why, but even in the pre-Christian era, the fashion for burials began to change and the Romans started burying the whole body in coffins and unburned.
Given that Roman law forbade the burial of bodies within the precincts of a city, this meant that shrines and burial places began to be developed on a larger scale in areas outside of city walls.
Looking out on the endless vista from the windows of your design hotel, Rome may seem a vast city but, by our standards, during the classic period, it would have seemed moderately small in geographic within-the-walls terms. What that meant was that people from the city precincts could reasonably easily reach outlying cemeteries in the suburbs or surrounding countryside (today regarded as being part of Rome proper); but there remained a fundamental problem.
Surface level burial plots would have remained relatively expensive, given that they were still consuming precious land. They would have been beyond the reach of many ordinary Romans and, as a result, as burial fashions changed poorer Romans started digging down and horizontally in order to bury their dead. These underground burial chambers became vast and are today known as the catacombs.
Catacombs and early Christians
In popular imagery, the catacombs are forever associated with persecuted Christians. In fact, although they played a very important part in providing sanctuary for Christians during times of persecutions, they were also used by non-Christian Romans and there are even several Jewish catacombs. Today, many are open for inspection. Some of them contain beautiful representations and paintings of Roman and early Christian life and are a fascinating insight into the practices of our ancestors.
Inevitably, they offer a very different view of the world to that of a design hotel. Rome is like that though: it's a beautiful city of ancient contrasts - and that is what makes it so exciting.