| Discovery of the sarcophagus of Leocadius during the excavations carried out by Serra i Vilaró in the Early-Christian Necropolis. |
The Early-Christian Necropolis of Tarragona
occupied land to the west of the city, near the River Francolí
(the ancient Tulcis), from the second half of the 3rd century
AD. The excavations carried out here have uncovered various suburban
buildings, as well as different funerary structures belonging
to the Necropolis itself.
In the northeast sector, behind the Museum
building and next to an ancient street, are the remains of a medium-size
suburban villa. In the villa we can see small thermal baths, cisterns
and other rooms for domestic and residential use. The building
was occupied during the second and third centuries AD. When it
was abandoned, the building materials were reused to make some
of the tombs in the Necropolis.
The different experts who have studied
the Necropolis generally agree that it was begun in the second
half of the 3rd century. They associate the destruction and abandonment
of the villa with the so-called Franco-German incursion of 259
AD and the possibility of the expansion of a preexisting burial
site.
The excavations uncovered as many as
two thousand and fifty tombs of different types. The tombs were
situated around and within a basilica. Inside the basilica a sepulchre
was found with an inscription alluding to Fructuosus, Augurius
and Eulogius, the martyrs of Tarraco.
A fragment of altar stone with the inscription [FRVC]TVOSI
/ A[VGVRII
ET EVLOGII]
seems to confirm that the Early-Christian Necropolis of Tarragona
grew up around the site of a holy tomb.
The most common types of tombs are made
of tegulae (flat tiles) or amphorae. There are also
simple burials in wooden coffins covered with gravestones or in
sarcophagi made of lead, stone, marble or covered with polychromatic
mosaic.
Other types of burial were made in collective
tombs and in funerary buildings, the most outstanding of which
is the monument located at the north of the complex. It has a
rectangular exterior base and a circular interior with niches.
Three family crypts from the 5th and 6th centuries testify to
the endurance of the Necropolis.
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