Vatican Museums

From the mid-second century until the fourth century A.D. the landscape of the Necropolis was dominated by large chamber tombs, positioned side by side. These tombs were located between the different levels of the terrain, which have been adjustedthrough various interventions in order to resist continual landslides. In the northern part of the archaeological area, around the middle of the second century A.D., a major landslide of gravel and clay struck the slope, coming to a halt against a line of columbaria. Following this event, which raised the ground level by over a metre, two long parallel walls were erected, creating three terraces interconnected by ramps. The middle level was occupied by a road, identified by archaeologists in the central part of the area that can now be visited.
The greater capacity of the burial chambers enabled them to accommodate sarcophagi containing interred remains, in accordance with a burial practice by then prevalent in the Roman world. The bodies were placed in particular in the loculi below the arcosolia, which were more numerous than in the preceding period. These occupied the full height of the walls and were also located below floor level.
Other interments, regarding individuals of modest social rank, consisted of pits dug directly in the ground between the buildings, sometimes sheltered by the ruins of tombs that had by then been filled with earth.