The excavations undertaken on the site of Lamapopoli at Canosa di Puglia (BT) concentrated on a number of sectors in catacomb C, so-called ‘s. Sofia’. The plan, size and intensive use of the funerary structures in this Christian catacomb suggests it was destined for collective use. It is formed by four communicating galleries (CI – CIV), on orthogonal axes, along which several cubicula opened. The catacomb, partially investigated in 2004-2006, has been the subject of systematic excavations by the PCAS from 2018 onwards. The chronology, as regards its construction and use, falls between the mid 4th and the early 6th century A.D. After the first decades of the 6th century A.D., there was a gradual decline in its funerary use, which finally ended in the structure’s definitive abandonment. The 2023 excavations concentrated in particular on the western part of gallery CII, where several elements suggested the presence of the original entrance to the ambulacrum, hidden by collapsed terrain, and where a group of ‘a cassa’ tombs (tt. 175, 205, 206) emerged, in relation to which a painted and inscribed shelf was built in the first half of the 5th century A.D., probably to mark and monumentalize one or more burials with the aim of preserving their memory.
Investigations also took place in gallery CIV where important new elements were documented. In fact, in the preliminary reports and preceding bibliography, contrary to what has emerged from the excavations, it was held that the gallery belonged to a different hypogeum (structure D). As far as it is possible to see at the moment, it appears to be almost exclusively occupied by carefully-made arcosolia – some for multiple burials.