Venture Down into the Catacombs of Rome

In Rome, the practice of burying the dead in underground chambers can be traced back to the Etruscan Civilization of ancient Italy. Although cremation was once popular, funeral customs gradually shifted to inhumation (burial of unburnt remains) and then burial with the rise of Christianity and belief in the bodily resurrection of the Second Coming.

Rome banned funeral burials within the city, forcing Jews and early Christians, who usually could not afford burial land, to dig an extensive network of tunnels into the soft volcanic rock outside the city limits. These catacombs were used for funeral and memorial services, and were often named after martyrs like St. Callixtus who were laid to rest there. There are now 60 known sites, which lie 20–60 feet underground, connected by narrow stairways and passages. The custom was to house the bodies in stone sarcophagi and place them in burial niches, many of which were decorated with some of the earliest examples of Christian art.

Catacombs eventually fell out of favor, with Christians opting for church cemeteries. By 380, Gratian made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, and catacombs were reserved solely for memorial services. The later Germanic tribes that sacked Rome violated the burial sites, which were eventually abandoned and forgotten about. They were not seen again until 1578 when scholar Antonio Bosio accidentally stumbled upon the burial site. In 1849, archeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi discovered the Catacombs of Callixtus and published their first extensive study. Today the catacombs are managed by the papacy, and are acknowledged as a monument to early Christianity.

Miles of tunnels around Rome are now open for the public to see. St. Callixtus is the largest and most popular, housing nine popes and a network that measures more than 19 kilometers long and 20 meters deep. St. Domitilla is the oldest, and contains a 2^nd-century fresco of the Last Supper. The third most popular catacomb site is St. Sebastian, which is famous for early Christian art and graffiti.