Frescoes shine light on Rome’s rich converts 1,600 years ago
DEEP in a labyrinth of dank tunnels, in the heart of Rome’s oldest and largest catacombs, archaeologists have discovered an exquisite set of 1,600-year-old frescoes painted to commemorate the city’s early Christians.
Experts used the latest laser technology to uncover centuries of grime which had rendered the frescoes invisible.
The discovery has shed new light on the process by which wealthy Romans shifted away from their pagan beliefs and embraced the new religion of Christ in the fourth century AD.
The beautifully rendered, multi-coloured frescoes adorn the ceilings of two crypts. Hacked out of soft volcanic rock, they were built for merchants who were part of the highly organised imperial grain trade.
Archaeologists found a series of frescoes which chronicle how grain was transported by ship from around the Mediterranean to the ancient Roman port of Ostia, then transferred to smaller boats, which brought it up the Tiber River to warehouses in the centre of the imperial capital.
For centuries, the ceiling frescoes in the Catacombs of St Domitilla were covered in a thick black layer of calcium deposits, algae and smoke from oil lamps. Laser instruments were used to burn away the dirt and deposits, leaving only the rich colours of the frescoes beneath.
“When we started work, you couldn’t see anything – it was totally black,” said Barbara Mazzei, who was in charge of the project. “Until recently, we weren’t able to carry out this sort of restoration – if we had done it manually we would have risked destroying the frescoes.”
The crypts were painted around 360AD, a few decades after Christianity was made legal by Emperor Constantine.