Tour Guide, Cairo, Egypt
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To visit the catacombs, one descends on a staircase wrapped around a central well into which the bodies of the deceased were lowered. This leads to the tombs on the three levels dug into the rock.
On the first level, there is a central round room and a large banquet hall, the Triclinium, where relatives and friends paid their last respects to the deceased. The considerable amount of pottery fragments found in the place derives the Arabic name of the catacombs, which means “Hill of the Shards”.
To the east of the rotunda is the Sala di Caracalla, an even more ancient funerary complex dedicated to Nemesis, the goddess of sport. It became accessible from the main chamber when some grave robbers broke in and knocked down the wall.
Another staircase descends to the central tomb, located on the second level. This is the fulcrum of the complex, whose singular decoration results from the fusion of various beliefs and funerary iconographies.
On both sides of the entrance, under Medusa’s heads, two giant snakes – which according to Greek mythology, were intended to turn any bull sack into stone – hold the double crown of Egypt. The decoration of the sarcophagi and the reliefs engraved on the walls show a mixture of Egyptian, Roman and Greek styles: next to the entrance is depicted Anubis, the god of the dead, whose massive body is here encased in a Roman legionnaire’s armour.
In the middle of the central tomb, a second rotunda descends to the lower floor, made inaccessible by floods. From the funerary chamber, passages branch off in all directions leading to chambers containing over three hundred burial niches.