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Tomb raiders and treasure hunters
The Mediterranean in Antiquity – a short review
Life in Classical times
Burial customs simplified
Coffins and sarcophagi in many shapes and sizes
Life after death
Burying the dead
The Roman way of death
Houses for the dead
Remembering the dead
Cultural crossroads – the Roman provinces of Syria and Judaea 
A Roman Province
Decapolis and Palmyra – cosmopolitain cities of the East
The Jews
The first Christians
Martyrs and relics
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MARTYRS AN RELICS

The bodies of martyrs and saints were the focus of special attention. Churches and shrines were erected at the places where holy men and women were buried, and masses and celebrations were held in their honour. These sacred sites attracted pilgrims from far afield to celebrate the cult of the martyr. Cemeteries that contained the grave of a saint were popular. It was a special privilege to be buried near a saint’s tomb, ad sanctos, as it ensured that the dead also benefited from the rituals that were preformed there.

Saint’s were often moved to other locations and re-interred, often under the altar of a church. The cult of Christian martyrs is already attested to in the 2nd century AD, but the systematic search for the graves of martyrs and saints started later in the 4th century AD. In time, the practice of moving saints’ bodies, or more commonly, saints’ body parts (relics), became increasingly common. The bishop St. Vitricius of Rouen ( 330 -  407 AD) was one of the first to collect relics for his church.

C40839 and C40830 are lids of oil reliquaries, containers designed for the storage of these bizarre ‘secondary burials’. The lids belonged to small, massive chests, into which the relic was placed.  The hole in the centre of the lid was used to pour oil over the relic.  A pipe led the oil into a little reservoir on the outside of the chest, from where it was collected and bottled.  The oil was believed to have special powers because it had been in contact with the holy relic, and was used for ritual purposes or sold to pilgrims and the devout. Reliquaries were usually placed under the alter, or in so-called martyria, special rooms for the worship of martyrs.

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