Monuments of the early church . h century the namewhich was proper to this cemetery began to be employed forall underground burying places indiscriminately. The name which was original to, and distinctive of, theChristian burial places was cemetery {coemeterium — kolixt]tyj-ptov). It is sufficiently indicative of the Christian hope, for itsignifies a sleeping place. It denotes a whole congeries oftombs rather than a single sepulchre, though it has this lattermeaning in the very rare instances of its pagan use. It was 23 24 CEMETERIES equally apt to denote a surface buiying place or one beneath
Monuments of the early church . h century the namewhich was proper to this cemetery began to be employed forall underground burying places indiscriminately. The name which was original to, and distinctive of, theChristian burial places was cemetery {coemeterium — kolixt]tyj-ptov). It is sufficiently indicative of the Christian hope, for itsignifies a sleeping place. It denotes a whole congeries oftombs rather than a single sepulchre, though it has this lattermeaning in the very rare instances of its pagan use. It was 23 24 CEMETERIES equally apt to denote a surface buiying place or one beneaththe ground. There was no special designation for the wholecomplex of the underground cemetery; particular areas, espe-cially the chambers which included the tomb of a martyr, werecalled cryptce; ordinary chambers, c?(6/cf</a; the Classical namehypogeum denoted especially an isolated and private sepulchralchamber. The name ambidacrum is given by archaeologists tothe corridors, though there is no evidence of its ancient Fig. 1. —Plan of part of the catacomb of Domitilla. It is these narrow corridors or galleries, extending often togreat length and crossing at every angle, which are the charac-teristic feature of the Roman catacombs, and give the impres-sion not only of boundless extent, but of hopeless intricacy(Fig. 1). In Rome the average width is less than a yard ; theheight is almost always above that of a man, and not infre-quently very much greater. In the catacomb of S. Gennaro atNaples the harder quality of the tufa permitted a very muchgreater width (from three to ten yards), and the limestone in NOMEX CLA TUBE 25 wliicli S. Giovanni at Syracuse is excavated permitted corridorsand cuhicula of a width which has no example in It is along the walls of these corridors that the tombs wereexcavated; the name given them was sepulcrum or locus, thoughthe archaeologists have adopted the diminutive term tomb is merely an oblong niche cut in the wall
Size: 1818px × 1375px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectchristi, bookyear1901
