A bisomus is a
tomb
A tomb ( grc-gre, τύμβος ''tumbos'') is a :wikt:repository, repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be ...
large enough to contain two
bodies
Bodies may refer to:
* The plural of body
* ''Bodies'' (2004 TV series), BBC television programme
* Bodies (upcoming TV series), an upcoming British crime thriller limited series
* "Bodies" (''Law & Order''), 2003 episode of ''Law & Order''
* ...
.
History
The ordinary tombs (loci) in the galleries of the
Roman catacombs
The Catacombs of Rome ( it, Catacombe di Roma) are ancient catacombs, underground burial places in and around Rome, of which there are at least forty, some rediscovered only in recent decades. Though most famous for Christian burials, either i ...
contained one body. It sometimes happened, however, that a space large enough to contain two bodies was excavated. Such a double grave is referred to in inscriptions as ''locus bisomus''. An inscription from the catacomb of
St. Calixtus, for instance, informs us that a certain Boniface, who died at the age of twenty-three years and two months, was interred in a double grave which had been prepared for himself and for his father (''Bonifacius, qui vixit annix XXII et II (mens) es, positus in bisomum in pace, sibi et patr. suo''). A 4th century inscription tells of two ladies who had purchased for their future interment, a bisomus in a "new crypt" which contained the body of a Saint:
Like so many pious but rather superstitious persons of that age, "Balerra" and "Sabina" wished to be buried in the closest proximity to a martyr, ''retro sanctos'', a privilege which, as we learn from another inscription, "many desire but few receive" (''quod multi cupiunt et rari accipiunt'').
References
Tombs
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