Walls and tombs came to light in the cellar of a house being restructured in via Giolitti 463, near piazza di Porta Maggiore. The finds extend over an area of circa 30 m2 and their chronology spans from the 1st to 7th century A.D. The structures, realised in different building techniques appear to belong to at least two funerary buildings.
The earliest walls, datable to the 1st century A.D. on the basis of building technique and stratigraphy, are built in opus reticulatum and cross the area in a N-S direction.
Subsequently, at a date which cannot be precisely defined, two buildings, only partially uncovered, were constructed in opus mixtum of re-used brick and tile with a reticulate facing.
The internal spaces were modified by late (end of the 5th-6th century A.D.) interventions such as blockings and variations to floor levels; the deposition of three infants (two being enchytrismòs) seems to confirm the area’s funerary function. Following the general obliteration of the area with dumps of building rubble (5th-6th century A.D.) the presence of two earth graves with tile coverings is attested. These were damaged at the same time.
The area investigated is part of the Labicana-Praenestina necropolis, partly excavated between the end of the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s during the urbanisation of the Esquiline quarter.
The literary sources attribute ownership of the lands between the Aurelian and the Servian walls to the family of the Statilii ( Horti Tauriani ) who, from the late Republican period, built their own cemetery area at a distance of several tens of metres south of the investigated area. (Giacomo de Cola – Luca Giovannetti)