May 31 – Anniversary of the Discovery of the Catacombs

nPostednon May 24, 2014

Onnthis date in 1578, some workers just outside of Rome, Italy, werendigging up some pozzolano earth to be used to make cement. Andnthey discovered something very cool. Or maybe very creepy!

nThenCatacombs.

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nThenworkers discovered a stairway going downward, underground, andnopening out to a series of narrow rooms or galleries that had beenncarved out of rock.

nAndnthe creepy part is that these were burial galleries!

nWhennthe Catacombs were discovered by accident, there was some excitement,nbut nobody put the effort in to study them. But in 1593 a young mannnamed Antonio Bosio decided that they were interesting – andnimportant! – and he began to explore them.

nHenexplored the Catacombs for more than 27 years! Basically, he explorednthem for the rest of his life.

nBosionfound 30 more entrances – 30 more sets of stairs going underground.nAnd he discovered that the chambers that were first found werenconnected to more and more – and more and more – narrow tunnelsnand galleries.

Some of the walls in some
catacombs were decorated
with paintings.

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nInread that, if you laid out all the branching galleries end to end,nthey would stretch the length of the country of Italy! (And yet allnthese lie just outside the city of Rome.) I also read that thenestimate of the number of bodies buried in the Catacombs is about twonmillion…Crazy, huh?!

nThenpeople buried in the Catacombs were Jews and (mostly) earlynChristians who lived in Rome. Apparently ancient Romans crematedntheir dead and kept the ashes in family tombs, but the Jews who livednin Rome followed the Jewish tradition of burial. Because the gravesnin Palestine were mostly tombs cut into rock, covered with slabs ofnstone, the Jews of Rome carved out similar rock tombs underground.nAnd since early Christianity was considered a sect of Judaism, so didnthe early Christians.

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nBosionended up writing a book called Roma Sotterranea (UndergroundnRome), in which he carefullyndescribed many of the catacombs he had explored. Modern scholars arengrateful that he did this, because some of the catacombs he hadnexplored have since been destroyed.

Some of the catacombs are decorated with
artistically arranged bones.

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nWhynrock?

nUndernRome and the land surrounding Rome is a thick layer of tuffn(sometimes called tufa). This volcanic rock is made fromnlayers of ash spewed from volcanoes and washed down into low-lyingnareas. The ash is pressed together by additional layers of ash andnsoil, and it hardens into rock.

Althoughnthe tuff found in some places of the world is pretty brittle—evennfragile—the tuff that is the bedrock of Rome is pretty strong. Manynancient and even modern Roman buildings have been built of blocks ofntuff.

nStill,nI imagine that tuff is a little easier to carve into than some sortsnof rock. It was probably ideal for creating rock graves—and that’snwhy the catacombs were used for so long, by so many.

nWhennChristianity became the official religion of Rome, in 380, variousnbuildings and temples were torn down or changed to become churches,nand burials began to be in more familiar churchyards and cemeteries.nEventually the catacombs were forgotten, their stairway-entrancesnburied—perhaps for a thousand years—until that accidentalndiscovery on May 31, 1578.

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nAlsonon this date: