Important discovery at the Roman Forum: an underground room with a sarcophagus, linked to the cult of Romulus, resurfaces

Important archaeological discovery in the Colosseum Park, about a year after the start of studies on the documentation produced by Giacomo Boni at the beginning of the twentieth century, which had allowed us to hypothesize the presence in the Roman Forum, a few meters from the Lapis Niger and the Comitium, of a heroon (i.e., a shrine) dedicated to the founder of the city of Rome. The discovery, described as “exceptional” by the Park’s management and made possible thanks to archaeological investigations planned by the Park itself, is an underground environment with a tufa sarcophagus inside about 1.40 m long, associated with a circular element, probably an altar. The environment has resurfaced near the Curia-Comizio complex: the sarcophagus, excavated in the tufa of the Capitol, is supposed to date back to the 6th century BC.

The context located below the access staircase to the Curia, built in the 1930s by Alfonso Bartoli, is evidently preserved for its own symbolic significance by the overlying Curia and coincides with what the sources hand down as the post rostra point (behind the republican Rostra, i.e., the tribunes of the Roman Forum from which orations were held), where the very site of Romulus’ burial is located (according to Horace ’s reading of a passage from Varro). It is no coincidence that in axis with the subterranean environment is the Lapis Niger, the black stone indicated as a funereal place because it is related to the death of Romulus.

The excavation and the prospects for the enhancement of this monumentum of the cult of Romulus and the history of Rome and its origins will be illustrated by Colosseum Archaeological Park Director Alfonsina Russo and the team of archaeologists and architects engaged in the research next Feb. 21 at 11 a.m.

Photo: view of the Roman Forum. Ph. Credit Wolfgang Moroder

Important discovery at the Roman Forum: an underground room with a sarcophagus, linked to the cult of Romulus, resurfaces

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