Columbaria - gabled, dovecote-like niches for low-status cremation urn interments - pierce a wall in the ruined Roman-era Porta Marina necropolis in the southern area of the ancient Greek and Roman port of Velia, by Marina Ascea on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea in Campania, southern Italy.
Velia, Marina di Ascea, Campania, Italy: columbaria - brick-gabled, dovecote-like niches for cremation urn burials - pierce a wall in the ruins of the Roman-era Porta Marina necropolis in the southern seaport area of this ancient Greek and Roman city. Columbaria were usually reserved for the ashes of low-status family members, or for those of slaves, freedmen and other dependents. The wealthier deceased were usually laid to rest in stone sarcophagi. Velia, on the Tyrrhenian Sea, was founded around 538 to 535 BC by Ionian Greeks displaced by Persians from Phocaea, now in modern Turkey. They called it Hyele, but the name then changed to Ele, Elea, and finally to Velia. It came under Roman control in 273 BC and in 88 BC, it became a Roman municipality. The city retained the right to mint coins and its citizens the right to speak Greek. Velia had two ports, one of them on the Alento river, but after centuries of silting, both are now far from the sea. Velia also declined because it was bypassed by new overland trade routes, in time shrinking to little more than a fishing village. In the 800s, most citizens left to escape malaria and raids by Saracen pirates, but some stayed to live on the acropolis. Their town, Castellamare della Bruca, survived until the late-1600s, but the acropolis was then finally deserted and the ruins below it slowly vanished under soil and vegetation. The ruins were rediscovered in 1833. Although more recent excavations by archeologist Amedeo Maiuri found fortifications, a sea wall, gateways, frescoed houses and thermal baths, parts of Velia remain buried. The acropolis, reached by a paved Greek road, retains a medieval tower built over a Greek temple, a medieval chapel and a 2,000-seat Roman theatre. Velia, in southern Italy’s Cilento region, is now protected as an archaeological park and as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Size: 4066px × 2712px
Location: Velia, Marina di Ascea, Campania, Italy.
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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