The Catacombs, Rome - Things to see

A visit to the Catacombs on the Appian Way allows us to trace the origins of the Christian presence in Rome and to explore one of the fundamental aspects of its identity. The Catacombs are in fact the underground cemeteries of the early Christians, located outside the city walls in accordance with the ancient custom that forbade the burying of the dead in the inhabited area. They consist of a series of levels with passageways dug out of the tufa, a soft volcanic rock that hardens when it comes into contact with oxygen contained in the air. The dead used to be wrapped in a shroud and placed in loculi and crypts carved out of the walls of the passageways themselves, and sealed with marble slabs or terracotta slabs, according to financial possibilities. It is interesting to notice how the layering of the levels, determined by the need to exploit the expensive land as much as possible, must be interpreted in the opposite way we do at a proper archaeological site. The most ancient level is in fact the first to be accessed, immediately below the ground level, and others were excavated beneath it as they gradually became filled up.
A persistent tradition identified the Catacombs as the hiding places of the early Christians at the times of the persecutions, but they were actually used exclusively as cemeteries and for devotional practices connected to the presence of the tombs of the saints and martyrs. The frescoes and inscriptions on the funerary slabs indicate how death was conceived as a moment of rest before the final awakening to eternal life, and the catacombs were thus places of transition, in contrast to pagan necropolis, considered to be the permanent abode of the dead. If you wish to see more in the area, the pedestrian section of the ancient Appian Way is easy to reach on foot from the major catacombs in the area.