Catacombs of Sousse

The catacombs of Sousse are an underground Nécropole located at the west of the Médina of Sousse (Tunisia). She is discovered in 1888 by colonel Vincent.

Arranged in basement towards the end of the 1st century by the Christian to bury their there Dead S at the time of their persecution (like everywhere else in the Roman Empire), the catacombs is appeared as 240 galleries extending on 5 kilometers and which would contain nearly 15.000 burials. Four of which three completion excavated - catacombs of Good Pasteur, from Hermes and Severe -, they are preserved better than the Catacombes of Rome. clandestine Cemetery, the catacombs were also used as place of worship and refuge for the first followers of Christianity and were used until the end of the 4th century.

Those of Good Pasteur, opened with the visit, extend on 1,6 kilometer and comprise approximately 6000 burials dug in the walls and superimposed on several stages. They were closed by Tuile S or flagstones of Marbre on which are sometimes traced, with the point or with a Pinceau, names of the late ones. The bodies were buried in a shroud and sometimes drowned in lime. With more or less regular intervals, one notes the presence of niches which accommodated oil lamps. When new galleries were opened, the ground was deferred in closed down galleries, which contributed to their good conservation. Some inscriptions and of the objects which formed the funerary Mobilier are preserved today at the museum of Sousse.

It was also a space of crowned artistic creation as some testify some to the works exposed to the museum of Sousse: epitaph S and Engraving S on marble representing of the crowned symbols (Poisson S, Dove S, the Good Pasteur, etc).

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