Usually limited to tomb architecture and the type of deposition (inhumation and cremation), the information documented during the study of Roman necropoli now also regards numerous other aspects including the funerary rites carried out in and around the tombs.
The literary sources dealing with funerary rites celebrated in the necropoli are allusive, from different periods and articulate in nature. In this sphere archaeology is essential as it is able to characterise, for each single case, the different stages of the funeral, the rituals accompanying the funeral ceremony and the use made by the living of the funerary spaces. This was the objective of the excavation begun in 2003 in the necropolis of Porta Nocera at Pompeii which offered a terrain adapt for archaeological study. The volcanic eruption of 79 A.D. has in fact preserved the tombs as they were at the moment of the catastrophe and the sudden halt in the use of the necropolis limited the transformations usually observed in necropoli remaining in use over long periods of time. (William van Andringa, Sébastien Lepetz)