Jewish,+Early+Christian,+and+Byzantine+Art

In ancient Rome, gravediggers were the architects of the underground. Where subsoil coinditions were right, they tunneled out streets and houses in a city of the dead - a necropolis - with as many as five underground levels. Working in the dark, narrow galleries as much as 70 feet below the surface, they dug out corridors, shelves, and small burial rooms to create catacombs. Above ground, the gravediggers acted as guards and gardeners. Some of them may have been artists too, for even the earliest catacombs contained paintings - initially very simple inscriptions and symbols. Welcome to early Jewish, Early Christian, and Byzantine Art.