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Catacombs
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The catacombs are ancient Jewish and Christian underground cemeteries.
The oldest catacombs of Rome date back to the end of the 2nd century; thanks to the easiness of digging in the tender tufa, a lot of tunnels were built. At the beginning, the catacombs were used exclusively to bury the dead and to pray on the tombstones of the the Christian martyrs, but during the persecutions of the Christians, the catacombs sometimes were used as shelter for the secret celebration of Communion, but it is only a legend that they were used as secret hiding places.
All the catacombs were located in the suburbs of the city because the roman law forbade to bury the dead within the walls of the city.
Between the 8th and the 9th century, as a result of the pillages of the Barbarians, the catacombs were gradually abandoned and the sacred relics were moved to the churches. In modern age they were accidentally rediscovered in the 16th century and they were explored: today we have been discovered approximately 40 catacombs, and some of they are open to the public, as for example the Catacombe di San Callisto, dated back to the 2nd century, constituted by a net of galleries nearly 20 kilometers long, that goes down till a depth of 20 meters, and the Catacombe di Domitilla, whose entrance is located under the Basilica of Nereo and Achilleo.
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