Tomb 86Isola Sacra Menu

Originally detached, tomb 86 consisted of two burial chambers above each other. One of them is partly subterranean.
The grave was facing the Via Severiana. The upper burial chamber that could be reached by a staircase of four steps, had two small windows in the back wall to illuminate the room a little bit. On the outside corners are square brick columns with pumice rosettes of lotus flowers in top.
The entrance is located in the middle of the façade.
The upper burial chamber has been built for interring urns only and has large central niches flanked by small, semicircular niches. The floor, now disappeared, must have been covered by a black-and-white mosaic.

The lower burial chamber, accessible by a small staircase of six steps, is more interesting than the upper one. Because the floor lies underground, there is nearly always water on top of it. The floor consisted of a black-and-white mosaic depicting a rowing boat with Charon, rowing the deceased to the afterlife.
In spite of the mythological nature of the scene, the type of boat depicted is the same type of boat that fishermen used. The mosaic is now protected by plastic and earth.
Alongside the back and side walls of the lower burial chamber three sarcophagi have been found (stored in the Ostian museum).
A large platform at the back wall and one alongside the left wall show that inhumation in the upper chamber became common during a later use of that chamber

The walled-in courtyard was added later. It is shaped irregularly due to the enclosing of the space between tomb 85 and 86.
The corridor created on the right side of the burial chamber was equipped with a furnace. The left wall of the new enclosure became a double row of small, semicircular niches. The right one has two rows of two small niches. The original entrance of tomb 85 was also located in this wall.

The façade of the enclosure lies in line with the enclosure of tomb 87, but protrudes a little bit with regard to tomb 85.
The entrance of tomb 86 is located on the right side of the façade, which has the following inscription:

CLODIA L(uci) LIB(erta)
PREPVSA
FECIT SIBI ET
L(ucio) CLODIO ATIMETO
CONIVGI B(ene) M(erenti) ET
LIBERT(is) LIBERTAB(usque) POSTERISQ(ue) EORVM
H(oc) M(onumentum) H(eredem) F(amiliae) EX(terum) NON S(equetur)
IN FRONT(e) P(edes) XX IN AGRO P(edes) XXXX

Clodia Prepusa, freedwoman of Lucius, has built this monument for herself and for Lucius Clodius Atimetus, her well-deserving husband, and for her freed slaves, and the descendants. The tomb could not be inheritated by those who did not belong to the family. The area measures 20 feet in width and 40 feet in depth. 

During a time of reuse four platforms used for inhumation were added alongside the walls of the enclosure and against the façade of the burial chamber. The one next to the entrance of the enclosure has a white mosaic with black flowers and the following polychrome inscription:

D(is) M(anibus)
STEDIA THYRANNIS
POSITA CVM MATRE ET
PATRE

Stedia Thyrannis is buried here with her mother and father.

Inside the enclosure a marble funerary altar has been found. The pillar measures 83 x 44 cms and has two inscriptions. On the upper part:

D(is) M(anibus)
CLAVDIAE HAMMONIL
IAE

On the lower part:

D(is) M(anibus)
TI(berio) CLAVDIO
SEVERO
CLAVDIVS SEVERIANVS
ET CLAVDIA
HAMMONILIA
PATRI PIENTISSIMO

Claudius Severianus and Claudia Hammonilia (erected this altar) for their most pious father, Tiberius Claudius Severus².

• 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: Escavations in the 70ths have brought to light a threshold covered with black and white mosaic. Thus, the polychromic mosaic dates from a later period or doesn’t belong to this tomb at all. - I. Baldassarre, I. Bragantini, Ch. Morselli en F. Taglietti: Necropoli di Porto (1996)
• 2:After the death of his sister, her brother added her name on the cornice.The brother does not have an own, second name, but the conjugation of his father's name (-inus, -anus). In this way the name of his sister comes from Hammonius (Ammonius). This is "child of Amon", an Egyptian name.- Thylander: Inscriptions du port d'Ostie.