Drugstore Museum e Circuito Necropoli Portuense

The cemetery, discovered in 1966 during the works for construction of buildings, and dug up in 1982-1983, extends on the area that today is crossed by the modern via Portuense; inside the Drugstore are the ruins of five tombs belonging to this cemetery dating back to the I and the III century AD, partially excavated in tuff and partially realized in opus reticulartum ("reticulated work") mixed with bricks. The biggest of these graves, called “tomb A”, is a room with barrel vault, at its centre is a big rectangular niche and its vault is decorated with a stucco shell. On the other walls are small niches to contain cinerary urns, then transformed into loculi for burial. The white and black mosaic floor represents scenes of grape harvest and, in the centre, the episode of Lycurgus assaulting the nymph Ambrosia who turns into a vine to defend herself. Another grave, “grave D”, has three entrance steps, it has a rectangular form with niches for the urns displayed in four lines, some graffiti on the plaster tell the names of the dead.