User:Cerberuslovesme/Roman funerary practices

Example of burial of a Roman Soldier lost at the Rome's defeat at Teutoburg Forest.

Note for peer review

I'm adding the Rapti section under the Arpagi subsection in the article. And the Alla Cappuccina and the put graves under the "tomb" section underneath the wealthy vs commoner subsection. Thanks!

Rapti

Rapti were infants 40 days or older who had cut teeth and were cremated. In Roman Britain, many burial sites of rapti contained a consistent appearance of small jet material bear carvings, lunulae and phalli symbols, beads, bells, coins, and pottery beakers, though variation is found among individual burial sites based on wealth, status, and physical or cultural considerations. The small jet bear is seen in the context of animal iconography and mythology. The bear is attributed to the Greek cult of Artemis, who oversaw childbirth and child-rearing. From a rapti grave site in Brescia, Italy, bear figurines were also seen sitting on their back legs while holding lamps, which is representative of the bear being both a guide and a companion for rapti in the afterlife. Lunulae and phalli symbols were used as protective devices in both apotropaic and chthonic contexts. The phallus with a horn was seen as a combination of male and female fertility. The phallus with a horn and the lunulae symbol was also representative as a protective device against evil and misfortune. Beads found in rapti burial sites were made out of various materials and often used for medicinal purposes. Pliny also notes in Historia Naturalis that jet, the material that the bears were carved out of, had been beneficial in curing toothaches and other medical ailments. Bells were placed in burial sites to drive away evil. Bells were also set into the mortar of the Roman Catacombs as a protective device over children's tombs. This protective device was especially common in the fourth century.

Alla Cappuccina

Example of Imbrex and tegula flanges that were used as roofing and in graves.

Alla cappuccina was the most common grave type and was mainly used for ordinary individuals. Its use can be dated from the Late Republic of Rome to the Late Empire. The corpse was placed in a pit and covered in large flat tiles with raised flanges. These flanges created the shape of an inverted V, meeting at the apex of the pit. This structure was then reinforced with either curved tiles (or imbrices) or stones and mortar. Alla cappuccina burials were used for both sexes and all ages including children aged 3 to 10, youth aged 11 to 20, and adults.

Pit Graves

Pit graves were reserved for young children or rapti. The corpse was laid into an unlined pit before being covered with flanges (or tegulae) set horizontally, downwards, and along the sides of the tomb. There was a projecting funnel which led through the ceiling to the ground outside of the grave. Mourners would use these funnels to offer libations during ceremonies honoring the dead.

Reorganization of Funerary Art Section

Funerary art

See also: Roman funerary art

Imagines ("images")

Molded mask of a girl with funerary inscription from Roman Gaul

Mummy portrait of a girl wearing a gold wreath, from Roman Egypt

See also: oscilla

Noble Roman families often displayed a series of "images" (sing. imago, pl. imagines) in the atrium of their family home. There is some uncertainty about whether these "images" were funeral masks, busts, or both together. The "images" could be arranged in a family tree, with a title (titulus) summarizing the individual's offices held (honores) and accomplishments (res gestae), a practice that might be facilitated by hanging masks. In any case, portrait busts of family members in stone or bronze were displayed in the home as well.

Funeral masks were most likely made of wax and possibly molded as death masks directly from the deceased. They were worn in the funeral procession either by actors who were professional mourners, or by appropriate members of the family. Practice may have varied by period or by family, since sources give no consistent account.

The display of ancestral images in aristocratic houses of the Republic and the public funerals are described by Pliny, Natural History 35, 4-11.

Since references to "images" often fail to distinguish between commemorative portrait busts, extant examples of which are abundant, or funeral masks made of more perishable materials, none can be identified with certainty as having survived. The veristic tradition of funerary likenesses, however, contributed to the development of realistic Roman portraiture. In Roman Egypt, the Fayum mummy portraits reflect traditions of Egyptian and Roman funerary portraiture and the techniques of Hellenistic painting.

Tombs

Tombs for the Wealthy

Excavations at Rome have yielded many rather extravagant cemeteries, housing the tombs of commoners and the wealthy aristocracy. On the whole, but not invariably, the aristocracy had the more elaborate tombs, typically cut into the bedrock and rectangular in plan. These rectangular tombs resembled the Ancient Roman's house structure, having doors, and many different chambers. Of these chambers, one was used to host the dead's memorial ceremony. During this ceremony, the family of the deceased would gather together and share a dinner. Other chambers were used to house anything thought necessary for the person laid to rest – including portraits of the deceased and any paraphernalia needed for the memorial ceremony that had yet to come.

Wealthy and prominent families had large, sometimes enormous, mausoleums. The Castel Sant'Angelo by the Vatican, originally the mausoleum of Hadrian, is the best preserved, as it was converted to a fortress. The family Tomb of the Scipios was in an aristocratic cemetery, and in use from the 3rd century BC to the 1st century AD. A grand mausoleum might include bedrooms and kitchens for family visits, which would include feasts.

Tombs for the Wealthy Middle Class

For the wealthy middle class, the roads from cities were lined with smaller mausolea; many of which survive, such as the Tombs of Via Latina, along the Appian Way. The Tomb of Eurysaces the Baker is a famous and originally very ostentatious tomb in a prime spot just outside Rome's Porta Maggiore, erected for a rich freedman baker around 50-20 BC. The tombs at Petra, in the far east of the Empire are cut into cliffs, some with elaborate facades in the "baroque" style of the Imperial period.

Tombs for the Less Wealthy and the Poor

Domitilla Catacomb

The less wealthy made do with smaller tombs, often featuring relief busts over a lengthy inscription. Cheaper still were the Catacombs of Rome, famously used by Christians, but also by all religions, with some specialization, such as special Jewish sections. These were large systems of narrow tunnels in the soft rock below Rome, where niches were sold to the families of the deceased in a very profitable, if rather smelly, trade. Decoration included paintings, many of which have survived.

Funeral Halls in the Christian Period

In the Christian period, it became desirable to be buried near the grave of a famous martyr, and large funeral halls were opened over such graves, which were often in a catacomb underneath. These contained rows of tombs, but also space for meals for the family, now probably to be seen as agape feasts. Many of the large Roman churches began as funeral halls, which were originally private enterprises; the family of Constantine owned the one over the grave of Saint Agnes of Rome, whose ruins are next to Santa Costanza, originally a Constantinian family mausoleum forming an apse to the hall.

Sarcophagi

Main article: Ancient Roman sarcophagi

The funerary urns in which the ashes of the cremated were placed were gradually overtaken in popularity by the sarcophagus as inhumation became more common. Particularly in the 2nd–4th centuries, these were often decorated with reliefs that became an important vehicle for Late Roman sculpture. The scenes depicted were drawn from mythology, religious beliefs pertaining to the mysteries, allegories, history, or scenes of hunting or feasting. Many sarcophagi depict Nereids, fantastical sea creatures, and other marine imagery that may allude to the location of the Isles of the Blessed across the sea, with a portrait of the deceased on a seashell. The sarcophagus of a child may show tender representations of family life, Cupids, or children playing.

Relief panel from a 3rd-century marble sarcophagus depicting the Four Seasons (Horae) and smaller attendants around a door to the afterlife

Some sarcophagi may have been ordered during the person's life and custom-made to express their beliefs or aesthetics. Most were mass-produced, and if they contained a portrait of the deceased, as many did, with the face of the figure left unfinished until purchase. The carved sarcophagus survived the transition to Christianity, and became the first common location for Christian sculpture, in works like the mid 4th-century Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.