CATACOMBS, subterranean caves or vaults used as burial-places. All nations have been accustomed to some outward manifesta tion of regard for the dead, such as funeral solemnities, the consecration of grounds for sepulture, the erection of monuments, etc. Some nations, as the Egyptians, constructed pyramids and labyrinths to contain the remains of the departed. Others, as the Phoenicians and after them the Greeks, hollowed out the rocks for tombs, surrounding their towns with vast magazines, containing the bones of their fathers. Asia Minor, the coast of Africa and Cyrenais, afford instances of these singular and gigantic works. The discovery of these mon uments has always excited the curiosity of travelers and the attention of artists. The latter have applied themselves to learn from them the character of architecture and paint ing at different epochs; and though they have often found only coarse representations, the productions of art in its infancy or decline, they have occasionally met with types of per fection. Many monuments of this description have been preserved to our days, and still con tain traces of the painting and architecture with which they were decorated. There are catacombs existing in Syria, Persia and among the most ancient Oriental nations. But the revolutions in these countries, and the changes which they have occasioned, have deprived us of the documents which would have given us exact information regarding them.
The description of the catacombs in Upper Egypt gives us an idea of those whose loca tion is still unknown to us. They contain the history of the country, and the customs and manners of the people, painted or sculptured in many monuments of the most admirable preservation. The subterranean caves of these countries, like almost all of the kind, have their origin in quarries. From the depths of the mountains which contain them, stone was taken, which served for the building of the neighbor ing towns, and also of the great edifices and pyramids which ornament the land. They are dug in a mountain situated in the neighborhood of the Nile, and furnished the Romans with materials for the construction of buildings in their colonial establishments. The excavations
in these mountains are found throughout a space of 15 to 20 leagues, and form subter raneous caverns which appear to be the work of art; but there is neither order nor sym metry in them. They contain vast and obscure apartments, low and irregular vaults, supported in different parts with piles left purposely by the workmen. Some holes, of about six feet in length and two feet wide, give rise to the conjecture that they were destined for sepul chres. Cells of very small dimensions, formed in the hollows of these obscure caverns, prove them to have been the abode of recluses.
In Sicily and Asia Minor a prodigious num ber of grottoes and excavations have been dis covered containing sepulchres. Some appear to have served as retreats to the victims of despotism. The greater part are the work of the waters which traverse the mountains of these regions, as for instance the great cave of Noto, which passes for one of the wonders of Sicily. This cave, the height, length and breadth of which are equal, has been formed by the Cassibili River, which runs at the bot tom, and traverses it for the length of 100 fathoms. In the interior of this cave are a number of houses and tombs. At Gela, on the south coast, there are abodes for the living and sepulchres for the dead, cut in the rocks; at Agrigentum subterraneous caves, labyrinths and tombs, arranged with great order and sym metry. There are also caverns in the environs of Syracuse which may be ranked with the principal monuments of this description, from their extent and depth, their architectural orna ments, and from some historical recollections attached to them. The catacombs in the tufa mountains of Capo di Monte, near Naples, con sists of subterraneous galleries, halls, rooms, basilicas and rotundas, which extend to the distance of two Italian miles. Throughout there are seen niches for coffins (loculi) and bones. A description of them was given by Celano in 1643. They probably owe their origin to the quarries which afforded tufa for the walls of the cities Palwopolis and Neapolis, and afterward served as sepulchres for the Christian congregations.