Tomb of the Reliefs
About
Carved and plastered to look like a furnished Etruscan house, this chamber tomb inside the Banditaccia necropolis molded household objects in relief across its walls and pillars, down to cushions, shields, and kitchen tools. It ranks among the best-preserved painted and sculpted tomb interiors to survive from the ancient world. Visitors touring the necropolis in 117 CE would have found it already four centuries old.
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
Nearby
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 →