catacomb

This article covers the underground vault complexes. See also: Catacomb , Katakomben, and Die Katakombe (disambiguation) .

Catacombs are underground vault complex , which the funeral are dead. They can reach an extent of several kilometers. The name is derived from the Roman field name ad catacumbas for a tuff quarry on the Via Appia at the site of the church of San Sebastiano fuori le mura , which comes from the Greek κατά kata 'down' and τύμβος tymbos 'grave' (cata tumbas became catacumbae) .

In today's parlance, other rooms located deep inside or underground in modern buildings are also referred to as catacombs, e.g. B. the team cabins in large sports arenas.

Catacombs of Domitilla in Rome with burial chambers carved into the rock

Catacombs of Naples (18th century depiction)

Uses

Catacombs are underground burial places with often widely ramified floors with individual cave graves hewn from the wall or burial chambers for several dead. Occasionally, niches were worked into the corridors for reasons of space. As a rule, however, the dead were not buried directly there, as in a crypt , but the bones were exhumed from the cemeteries and transferred to the catacombs, which thus took on the function of an ossuary .

Roman catacombs served persecuted Christians as refuge between the 2nd and 4th centuries.

Contrary to this idea, which originated from relevant novels and films, research has now established that the catacombs were almost never used for Christian gatherings or even as hiding places. Their emergence is simply due to the fact that in the Roman Empire no burials were allowed to take place within the city walls and cremations contradicted the Christian beliefs of the time. Therefore, in the course of time, tombs made available to the Christians by befriended Roman families were extended and expanded underground, with the facility in soft volcanic tuff rock accommodating the expansion. Today, for example, about 20 kilometers of corridors and rooms are known in the Calixtus catacomb on the Via Appia antica in Rome.

places

In Rome, the Catacomb of Calixtus, San Sebastiano, S. Domitilla, S. Agnese and S. Priscilla can be visited. There are larger catacombs on the Greek island of Milos , in Naples and under St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna . Catacombs have been rebuilt in Valkenburg, the Netherlands ( Roman Catacomb Valkenburg ).

See also

Crypt of the Popes, Catacomb of Calixtus , Rome

• Catacombs in Rome
• Catacombs of San Gaudioso (under Santa Maria della Sanità ), Naples
• Catacombs of Paris
• Catacomb of Lyon
• Catacombs in Malta
• Capuchin Crypt (Palermo)
• Odessa Catacombs
• Catacombs of Syracuse
• Berliner Unterwelten , an association that makes underground Berlin accessible

Web links

Commons : Catacombs  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Wiktionary: catacomb  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

• Description and interpretation of the Roman catacombs (Italian, English, Spanish, French)

Individual evidence

1. ^ G. Babiniotis: Large dictionary of the modern Greek language . Lexicological Center, 2nd edition. Athens 2006, ISBN 960-86190-1-7 .
2. ↑ ^{a b} M. Elser, S. Ewald, G. Murrer (ed.): Enzyklopädie der Religionen. Weltbild, Augsburg 1990, p. 170.