Tomb 79Isola Sacra Menu

Above the entrance of tomb 79 we find the following inscription on a marble slab of 37 x 52 cms:

The entrance and the enclosure were made by Tiberius Claudius Eutychus for Claudia Memnonis, his well-deserving wife, for himself and their children, for their freed slaves, and the descendants.
The monument could not be inherited.
The area in width and in depth measured 15 Roman feet.



This tomb was built as a columbarium, but was also used for inhumation later on. Below the niches in the burial chamber are marble plates, once used for the names of the deceased. These kind of tombs were probably used in later time by members of a funerary guild (cf. tombs 60, 63, 77, 85, 87 and 94).
Above the central rectangular niche in each wall is a triangular tympanum. The niche in the left wall has a painting of Neptune on a white-yellow background. You can clearly see the trident in his left hand.
In the niche in the right wall, Hercules was depicted with a club in his right hand (now in the stroage rooms of Ostia).
The ceiling, white plastered, had many painted circles. Some of these still preserved paintings of male and female heads (probably the four seasons). Others were showing painted flowers. The best preserved pictures are stored in the Ostian storage rooms.
Brick stamps are dating tomb 79 back to 123 AD.

 



 



 

 

• 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).
  
  
• Notes
• 1: Guido Calza pointed that tomb 79 seemed to be much lower than usually in antiquity. By his opinion the floor was raised due to the water overflow. This should also explain why the lower niches of the walls are so close to the floor. Guido Calza: Necropoli nell’ Isola Sacra. 1940