Crisis & Ambition. Tombs and Burial Customs in Third-Century CE Rome

In "Innovation and New Designs" (Chapter Three), the author presents new trends in burial customs, like free standing sarcophagi, and proposes the re-dating of a number of monuments to the third century. The following chapter on "Underground Tombs" (Chapter Four) is a substantial discussion of the topics of hypogea and the catacombs, presenting recent re-evaluations of the catacombs as communal, not exclusively Christian burial sites and discussing different types of hypogea and the roles of persons involved with their installation and management. The large amount of material treated is on the one hand a very welcome source of evidence and is carefully discussed by the author; on the other hand, the book can sometimes be overwhelming in its ambition of presenting the totality of the available evidence for certain types of monuments.