Columbaria

A columbarium is a building designed to hold a number of burials.  These buildings were generally made of concrete with brick facing.  The interior contained numerous niches for funerary urns or sarcophagi.  A large inscription commemorating the person who paid for the monument would appear over the door into the columbarium.  Burials inside the monument generally were confined to the immediate family, slaves and freedmen of the person who paid for the monument. 

Burials took place inside the columbarium in the niches on the walls (just like with the columbaria belonging to the burial societies).  Columbaria could contain cremation or inhumation burials or a combination.

The price of columbaria is dependent upon their size.  Most in Ostia were relatively small.  Several very huge columbaria are preserved outside of Rome and housed the the slaves and freedmen of very rich and powerful families.  The very large columbaria were mostly underground so as not to take up so much valuable real estate above ground. 

The columbaria described on this page were like small houses (with very simple interiors).  Miniature columbaria can be found on the next page. 

There is no restriction on the size of the inscription that appears over the door of the columbarium.  There would also be small plaques under each urn inside the columbarium to tell the name of the person buried there. 

Generally, the number of people to be buried inside the columbarium would dictate the size of the monument.  Each nich takes 1 1/2 to 2 feet of horizontal wall space and niches could be stacked on top of each other from floor to cieling.