Imagine accidentally finding a trove of precious archeological treasures while digging a trench for a solar panel plant. This is exactly what happened outside of Rome, near the ancient city of Tarquinia, where archeologists discovered an ancient Roman necropolis.
Tarquinia, having been a major city in ancient Etruria, is already a hot spot of Etruscan culture and there is already another necropolis there. Also known as Monterozzi, it is one of the most important and extensive Etruscan burial sites, dating from the 7th to the 2nd century BC. It contains about 6,000 graves, of which 200 are decorated with frescoes that depict scenes of daily life, rituals, mythology and animals.
However, this new find–just 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Rome–seems to be of much more recent date. The archaeologists involved in the early stages of the lab testing say that the 67 skeletons belong to people who lived in the second through the fourth centuries AD, a period that straddled the apex of the Roman Empire to its incipient decline.
The skeletal remains were found very close to ground surface, only 20 inches (50 cm) deep. In 57 decorated tombs, there were 67 well-dressed skeletons wearing gold jewelry and precious stones.
The skeletons were well-preserved, the bones did not seem stressed from hard labor, were dressed in lavish clothes, wearing jewelry and leather footwear, while the tombs were decorated to resemble their homes.
Gold jewelry, silver engraved rings, amulets containing precious stones, elaborate terracotta pottery, Roman coins of different values, glass objects were among the findings in the tombs.
Archaeologists assume that they belonged to wealthy, powerful Roman families that lived in that era. They speculate that this particular cemetery was reserved for the city’s elite.
Much further research and lab testing of the findings are needed to answer the many questions about the history of ancient Rome and social norms in particular.
Ancient Romans cemeteries were built outside the ritual boundaries of towns and cities, along the roads leading to them and they enacted lavish ceremonial rituals to avoid having a malicious spirit rising from the underworld. Generally, there were five parts to a Roman funeral: A procession, burial or cremation, eulogy, feast, and commemoration.
The wealthier and more famous the deceased was in life, the flashier the funeral procession would be and the richer were the grave goods.
