Funeral inscription

Funeral inscription

s. I BC and reused until the s. V AD

Fragment of a tombstone from the Republican era that was found in a filling during the connection works that were carried out at the Museum to join the Roman Baths area with the Decumanus area, in 2008-09. It was found in the middle of the rests of the demolition of a house that took place in the 5th century AD.

The stone of the inscription is very worn out and must have been reused to build one of the stone walls in the area. At the back, it has two rectangular sockets to hold the tombstone or for its subsequent reuse.

The transcription of the preserved and legible letters is:

– – – – – –
[- – -] RA [- – – ]
[- – – ] SITA [- – – ]
[- – – ] R . AN [- – -]
[- – – ] OMI [- – -]
[- – -] NES [- – – ]
[- – – ] A . V [- – -]
[- – -] + . EO [- – -]

Although there is no complete sequence with these letters we can deduce that it is a funerary tombstone. The letters SITA refer to the funerary phrase HSE (Hic situs or sita est), which means here he or she rests, in this case she a woman. We also know that the age at which she died was expressed by AN (annis) at least for a buried person, OMI refers to the family name, perhaps Domitius/a.

Because of the palaeographic characteristics such as the square capital letter, deeply engraved, without reinforcements and with angled S, with triangular points with the apex facing downwards and the use of the formula that includes SITA, we would place this piece in the last quarter of the 1st century BC .

Material: Local sandstone Dimensions: 28x19x11 cm Ref.: 13290