Necropolis of via Laurentina (Tombs of the Claudii)

The Necropolis develops along the two sides of via Laurentina and a road connecting Ostia to the Pianabella area; later the tombs also occupied the sides of an inner street and a neighboring square.

The excavations, which began in the 1800s and continued with discontinuity until the 1930s, brought to light the burial ground which was used from the Republican age up to the third century AD. In ancient times, the continuous infiltration of water from the subsoil made it necessary to raise the level of the necropolis, so that the more recent tombs often overlapped the older ones.

The burial ground was used above all by freedmen (liberti) - former slaves - of the families of the Manilii, the Iulii, the Nonii, the Volusii, as was deduced from the inscriptions.

The type of buildings, which varies according to the eras and funerary uses, testifies to the high economic level reached by many freedmen in the commercial sphere during the empire: the latter in fact are of the simple enclosure kind or enclosure with a funeral monument on the front in more ancient times, while, on the other hand, in the tombs of a later period, two areas can be distinguished, divided by a wall: one intended for the cremation of corpses, the other for burial.

At the beginning of the first century AD the chamber tombs with the niches for the cinerary urns appear, and later, also the columbariums.

Photo credits: Courtesy of Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica official site