Archaeologists have discovered on the site of the ancient Roman port of Ostia a cemetery, on the graves of which are written curses designed to scare off looters.
Italian archaeologists have discovered an unusual find. On the site of the ancient Roman port, which supposedly existed about 2, 700 years ago, a whole cemetery was found. Specialists hope that numerous graves will be able to reveal all the vicissitudes of the development of the Eternal City. Ostia “was a very open city, very vibrant,” said Paola Germoni, the caretaker of the ancient site, the third most popular after the Coliseum and Pompeii. “The surprising thing about the burial found is that there are traces of both burials and cremations.” The extraordinary nature of the cemetery can be traced even in a small series of tombs - members of the same family could be buried in different ways.
This is not the last find of Ostia. In April, archaeologists said they managed to unearth the walls of local buildings. They turned out to be 35 percent more than expected, which allows us to believe that the city buried under the layers of time was even larger than Pompeii.
Ostia, which was founded in the 7th century BC and occupied an area of 85 hectares, which was once located at the mouth of the Tiber River, moved three kilometers from the sea due to constant siltation. The place where the graves were recently discovered was inside a huge park not far from the mighty Renaissance castle, as well as numerous residential buildings, warehouses and a theater. The port was built by order of Ancus Marcius, the fourth ruler of Rome. Vladyka thus wanted to provide access to the sea to the rapidly growing and developing Eternal City and at the same time protect Rome from attacks by enemy ships.
Archaeologists have discovered about a dozen burials. Unusual inscriptions were found on several graves, after decoding of which it was established that these were curses designed to scare the vandals away. “The cemetery shows freedom of choice in relation to its body,” says Hermoni. “Such freedom did not exist after the introduction of Christianity.”
Recent excavations, which began in 2012, also gave the world another buried house of local nobility. Thirty students from the American Institute for Roman Culture are also participating in the research. In order to become more familiar with the latest finds, scientists from Canada, Switzerland and the United States of America have already begun to arrive in Rome. “These excavations are necessary in many ways,” explains Darius Arya, an American archaeologist who heads the institute. - “Particular attention is paid to the study of tombs.”
Among students engaged in excavations in Ostia, Michael Ann Morrison, from the American town of Austin, is a graduate of the Department of Religious Studies. “You have to work with fragile artifacts, which in itself is simply amazing,” she says. “I am doing an internship in this way. It’s an amazing place and experience in every way. ”
