Tomb 25Isola Sacra Menu

Tomb 25: seen from the Via Severiana. On the left side the passageway.

map tombe 25 26
Tomb 25 is the first grave in a block of four tombs which all have their entrances pointed, under a slight angle, towards the Via Severiana. The left side of the façade has a corner column, the right side shares the same kind of column with tomb 26.

Tomb 25: the burial chamber seen through the entrance.

The burial chamber, arranged for inhumation only, had a double row of arcosolia in the walls and burial places beneath the floor.
The paintings of the niches can be seen fragmentary. The one from the niche in the back wall is nowadays stored in the museum of Ostia (inv. nrs. 10118a, b and c). The painting shows two peacocks on both sides of a glass cup with handles, filled with flowers and fruit.
The same kind of scene we can see in tombs 34 and 16.
The upper part of the walls has disappeared and so has the roof.
The grave dates from the first decade of the third century AD.

Tomb 25: the arcosolium in the back-wall.

Tomb 25: the arcosolium in the back-wall for removing the painting. (Photo ICCD E017026)

Two other arcosolia were decorated with birds, fruit and flowers.

Tomb 25: one of the arcosolia painted with fruit, flowers and birds.

Sources
Russel Meigs - Roman Ostia, At the Clarendon Press 1973
Guido Calza - Necropoli nell'Isola Sacra'(1940)
Dr. Jan Theo Bakker.
Hilding Thylander - Inscriptions du port d'Ostie (Lund C W K Gleerup 1952).
Ida Baldassarre, Irene Bragantini, Chiara Morselli and Franc Taglietti - Necropoli di Porto, Isola Sacra (Roma 1996).