Catacomb of Priscilla

The air changes first. A few steps below the street, the warmth of Rome falls away, and a steady coolness settles on your skin. The ground underfoot is soft, packed earth. The walls on either side are a grainy, golden-brown stone, close enough to touch. Somewhere ahead, a guide's voice echoes and then fades around a corner. You are now walking through one of the oldest Christian burial grounds in the city.

This is the Catacomb of Priscilla, under the Via Salaria, the ancient salt road that ran north-east out of Rome. Above your head, the city carries on. Traffic moves along the road, and the trees of the Villa Ada park stand nearby. Down here, a network of narrow galleries spreads out on more than one level. Over the centuries, many thousands of people were laid to rest in this place.

Look closely at the walls. They are cut from tufa, a volcanic stone that forms across much of the Roman countryside. When tufa is freshly dug, it is soft enough to carve with simple iron tools. Once it meets the air, it slowly hardens. That property made it ideal for this kind of work. Diggers could cut long corridors and shelves by hand, and the shelves would hold their shape for centuries.

Those shelves are the burial niches. In Latin they are called loculi, and they are stacked one above another, like the bunks of a ship. Each niche once held a body wrapped in cloth. It was then sealed with a slab of marble or with tiles and mortar. Notice how many of the niches are small. Many of them were made for children. That detail often stops visitors in their tracks.

Who was Priscilla? The honest answer is that we do not know very much. The name comes from a woman who owned or donated the land. Many scholars connect her to the Acilii, a powerful Roman senatorial family, because a burial area linked to that family was found here. Tradition goes further. According to one old story, a member of the family was a consul who was executed under the emperor Domitian. Treat that part as legend, not as settled history.

There is a practical reason why burials happened outside the walls. Roman law did not allow the dead to be buried inside the city. So cemeteries grew along the roads leading out of Rome. Part of this catacomb began in an old quarry, where workers had once dug sand and volcanic ash for building mortar. Early Christians adapted these tunnels and extended them. In time, a quarry became a city of the dead.

Now for one of the surprises most people come here hoping to see. On a ceiling in one of the galleries is a faded painting of a woman holding a child at her breast. Beside her stands a man who points upward, towards a star. Scholars usually date the image to the third century. It is widely described as the earliest known painting of the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus. The man is often identified as a prophet, perhaps Balaam or Isaiah.

The painting is small and soft in colour, and you could easily walk past it. Take a moment. Imagine a lamp held up to this ceiling some 1,800 years ago, and a family gathering here to remember someone they had lost. The image was not made for a museum. It was made for mourners, in the dark, by the light of a small flame.

Another space here is known as the Greek Chapel. It takes its name from inscriptions in Greek painted on its walls. It looks like a small room with arches and a bench, and its walls carry scenes from the Bible. One painting shows a group of figures at a meal, sharing bread. Many people read it as an early image of a shared ritual meal. Others see a funeral banquet, a common custom at Roman tombs. Both readings are part of the conversation.

In another chamber, called the Cubiculum of the Velatio, you can see a woman with her arms raised in prayer. This open-armed pose is called the orans position. It appears again and again in early Christian art. Near her, other scenes seem to show moments from a woman's life. These paintings were cleaned during a careful restoration in recent years. Colours and details that had been hidden under centuries of dust became visible again.

Here is a second thing many visitors miss. This catacomb was once called the Queen of the Catacombs. The reason is the number of martyrs and early bishops of Rome who were buried here. Several early popes rest in this ground. Above it, a church dedicated to Saint Sylvester was built to honour those burials. Pilgrims came from far away during the early Middle Ages to visit these graves.

Over time, the pilgrims stopped coming. Relics were moved into churches inside the city, entrances collapsed, and the tunnels were largely forgotten. From the late sixteenth century, explorers and scholars began to map Rome's catacombs again. Today this site is cared for by the Church, and the Benedictine Sisters of Priscilla welcome visitors at the convent entrance on the Via Salaria. You can only go inside with a guide, which protects both the fragile paintings and the visitors.

As you walk, listen to the silence. The voices of your group sound flat and close, because the stone absorbs the echo. Notice the small lamp ledges cut into some walls. Notice the marks of tools on the stone, the faint shine where many hands have touched it, and the scraps of painted plaster still clinging to arches. Each detail is the trace of a person who worked, prayed or grieved here.

When you climb back up to the street, pause at the top. Feel the warmth return to your skin, and let your eyes adjust to the sunlight. The traffic on the Via Salaria still moves along the old route out of Rome. Beneath your feet, the quiet galleries go on, mile after mile, carrying their small paintings and their sealed shelves. Take one last look at the ordinary street, and remember what lies under it.