Tomb 26Isola Sacra Menu

Tomb 26 lies on the same axis as 25, 27 and 28. Together they form one block with a view on the Via Severiana.
Between these tombs and the main street we notice traces of a colonnade.
On the backside of tomb 26 a relief has been attached in later time.
The burial chamber was organised for inhumation with two rows of arcosolia in the side walls. The back wall is occupied by a stone bench which was once probably covered with marble. It served most likely as a base for a sarcophagus.
In the middle of the right side was a staircase to an upper floor. We can still see the first two steps and the left turn of the staircase to the level of the upper row of niches.
The floor was covered by marble plates. One of them was equipped with a bronze ring which made it possible to enter the graves beneath the floor.

Relatively much of the decoration in the niches has been preserved. In the lower left niche of the left wall we can see two ducks in a water landscape. Both are looking at a rock in the middle of the scene. On the rock we see a cupid with outstretched arms. These kind of scenes, often seen in Roman graves, were inspired by the well-known Nile-scenes, although nothing refers to Egypt anymore. Therefore they have to be interpreted as a place of peace and happiness (see also tombs 34 and 43). The painting is now stored in the museum of Ostia (inv. nr. 10125).
Tomb 26 dates from the end of the second / beginning of the third century AD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the right lower niche in the left wall a hunting scene was painted: a pack of hounds hunting a deer. No human figures are depicted (inv. nr. 10804).
Another painting was to be seen in the left lower niche in the right wall. In this one a male bust on both sides flanked by an animal was represented: on the left side a panther and on the right side a goat. To the left of the panther were a mask of a Satyr and vine-leaves. The whole painting has a rustic, Dionysian character (inv. nrs. 10805 a, b and c)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• 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).