More Rome…the Catacombs at Priscilla
July 21, 2008 by Cyndi Lavin
Filed under Home & Living
Our guide at the Priscilla Catacombs was quick to inform us that they were a burial ground, not a place that the Christians met to avoid persecution. This was the only place that we took a guided tour (besides the glass factory on Murano), because the lighting is dim and the tunnels are twisty. Every year, more sections are opened, and more treasures are revealed.
No pictures can be taken, but they had an excellent selection of postcards and books. There were none that showed the tunnels with all the niches dug out of the rock for burial platforms, but many good ones of the frescoes which have been uncovered in some of the larger chambers.
This one is the three young Hebrew men that were thrown into the furnace in the book of Daniel. They emerged unscathed, and the King saw the figure of God walking around with them:
This fresco has the oldest known image of the Virgin with her child. She is sideways on the righthand side:
This is the fresco from the burial chamber of a very important woman in the community, who had lived a holy life of service. The peacock stands for immortality, or eternal life:
