Sepulcrum Militis Romani
About
A carved figure wearing a muscled cuirass decorated with flowers stands at the center of this facade in the Wadi Farasa valley, its armor style so distinctly Roman that early visitors assumed it marked a soldier's grave. Archaeologists now date the complex to the third quarter of the 1st century CE, decades before Rome annexed the Nabataean kingdom in 106 CE. A carved triclinium banquet hall sits directly across a courtyard from the tomb facade. The figure was almost certainly a Nabataean official, not a Roman legionary.
What happened here
Roman burial is a family matter conducted in public. The dead are carried out of town, cremated or laid in the ground, and mourned with formal noise; the funeral of anyone important is a procession with masks of the ancestors carried by hired men. The tomb that follows is designed to be read by strangers on the road: name, age, offices, sometimes a trade shown in relief, often a line addressed directly to the passer-by. Ordinary people appear here as they nowhere else — a baker with his ovens carved on the front, a freedman naming the woman he could finally marry, a child's age given in days. Anniversaries bring the family back with food and wine.
Sources
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →