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From:
'Guide to the Vatican Necropolis' by Michele Basso,
Fabbrica di S. Pietro
The
Tomb of L. Tullius Zethus (Tomb C)
The
titulus above the entrance indicates the owner, (L.)
Tullius Zethus and his family. This tomb is one of
the most ornate, with its mosaic wall and floor decorations,
partly polychrone and partly black and white. There
are niches for cineraria and two arcosolia. In the
north wall two marble urns have been added at a later
period; these have typically Christian design elements,
such as the laurel wreath and palm.
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In
order to avoid any ownership disputes, the legal measures
for the building were indicated on the marble tablet; the
building was to have a frontage of twelve feet and a depth
of eighteen, measurements that correspond to the actual
size of the building.
The
funerary chamber, which has an area of about 11 sq. m.,
housed inhumation tombs and cremation tombs with a total
of about seventy places. The sejpulchral altars designed
to hold the ashes of the two children of Tullius Zethus
commemorated in the external inscription are set into the
northern wall.
Sources
P. Zander. The Vatican Necropolis, in "Roma
Sacra", 25, Roma 2003
Margherita Guarducci,
The Tomb of St Peter, Hawthorn Books, 1960
John Evangelist Walsh,
The Bones of St Peter, New York, 1982
J. Toynbee - J.W. Perkins. The Shrine of St Peter and
the Vatican Excavations, London 1956
Michele
Basso. Guide to the Vatican Necropolis, Fabbrica
di S. Pietro in Vaticano, 1986
