Catacombs of Milos: An Early Christian Underground Cemetery in Greece
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Greece
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval
- Civilizations
- Byzantine, Roman
- Site type
- Burial
- Remains
- Catacomb
On this page14 sections
History
The Catacombs of Milos are an early Christian underground cemetery in Greece, on the hillside southwest of Trypiti near the ruins of ancient Melos. Created by the island’s Christian community, the cemetery was used from the 1st century AD into late antiquity and became one of the earliest known Christian archaeological sites in Greece. During periods of Christian persecution, it also served as a place of worship and communal assembly.
Early Christian cemetery
The cemetery remained in use until approximately the 6th or 7th century. It functioned as a communal burial ground, although smaller underground cemeteries also existed in the surrounding area. Evidence from excavations includes imported vessels from Asia Minor, Cyprus, and North Africa, along with objects and food remains associated with burial ceremonies.
Traces of fire and cooking vessels indicate that the nekrodeipnon, a meal held as part of funerary rites, took place at the site. Gems, pendants, a metal ring, glass vessels, glass beads, bronze and iron nails, lamps, pottery, and animal and fish bones were also recovered. A lamp decorated with Jewish symbols has been linked to the possibility of connections between Milos’s early Christians and Jewish communities. The surviving inscriptions, however, are written in Greek and include Greek names, indicating substantial use by the local population.
Decline and rediscovery
The catacombs ceased to be used in the 7th century, when earthquakes and raids affected Milos. Their history was later obscured until the complex was rediscovered and publicized around 1840. By the time the German archaeologist Ludwig Ross visited in 1844, the graves had already been looted. Ross proposed that the cemetery contained approximately 1,500 to 2,000 graves and 7,000 to 8,000 people, while the French archaeologist Charles Bayet later estimated about 300 graves and no more than 1,500 burials. These widely different estimates reflect the difficulty of reconstructing the cemetery’s original extent and population.
Bayet visited in 1878. In 1907, the Greek researcher George Lampakis investigated and cleared parts of the complex. The Greek archaeologist George Sotiriou carried out a detailed study in 1928 and noted that many grave slabs seen by Ross had disappeared. Systematic work continued with excavations in the 1950s and 1960s. Rescue excavations by the 2nd Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities between 2007 and 2009 exposed southern extensions of Catacombs A and B and showed that the galleries formed a more integrated complex than Sotiriou had initially proposed.
The catacombs opened to the public in the 1960s. From 2002, they were used once a year as a church for the Feast of All Saints, with one tomb serving as an altar. A plexiglass cross placed above the tomb was removed in the late 2000s. Heavy rain flooded the complex in October 2009, after which it reopened several months later. Catacombs A and B were shown to belong to a connected underground system, although only Catacomb B and part of Catacomb A are currently accessible.
Remains
The complex consists of underground halls and corridors cut into soft, porous volcanic tuff, or consolidated volcanic ash. Its galleries extend for approximately 200 metres. Corridors range from 1 to 5 metres in width and from 1.6 to 2.5 metres in height. Three principal sections, named Catacombs A, B, and C from west to east, were once thought to be independent. Artificial corridors, transverse connections, and the southern extensions exposed by modern excavations instead reveal a connected arrangement of burial spaces.
Halls and underground chambers
Catacombs A and B
The present entrance opens into the hall of Catacomb B. A possible earlier entrance lay farther south, where the walls of Catacomb A and Hall Bayet converge. A semicircular wall and an unfluted column found in place suggest that an entrance structure stood there. The southern chambers of Catacombs A and B were exposed for approximately 15 to 16 metres during the 2007 to 2009 excavations. Their roof had almost completely collapsed, while the walls survived together with nine arcosolia, burial recesses covered by arches, and four loculi, horizontal wall recesses for burials.
A small cubiculum, or chamber used for family burials, occupies the southern part of Catacomb B. It contained two cist graves, a marble sarcophagus, and thirty-three pit graves. In the second room of Catacomb A, paired arcosolia line the north side and probably served as family graves. An inaccessible corridor preserves fragments of two inscriptions known as the “Melon” and “Thomas” inscriptions.
Catacomb C
Catacomb C lies east of Catacomb B and is not currently accessible. Its southern part has collapsed, while an artificial corridor links its two halls with the adjoining complex. East of Catacomb B, a family burial chamber contains three arcosolia and a cist tomb.
Hall Bayet
Hall Bayet lies west of Catacomb A and was discovered during modern excavations. It is closed for protection, and its original entrance is at the northwest. The hall contains nine arcosolia and two cubicula, the plural form of cubiculum.
Graves and burial arrangements
Arcosolia, loculi, and pit graves
Three principal grave forms organize the cemetery. Arcosolia are arched recesses cut into the walls, loculi are horizontal recesses, and pit graves are cut into the floors. Floor graves were covered with roughly worked slabs of unequal size, some possibly taken from earlier ancient buildings. Slabs and successive layers of plaster sealed the graves. Some arcosolia had small columns and plaster screens in front, while their drums or curved upper sections sometimes contained niches for offerings, lamps, or infant burials.
The catacombs preserve approximately 126 burial chambers. Individual arcosolia could hold several burials, with estimates of roughly five to seven people in each. Most excavated graves had been robbed or disturbed. A large number were marked with the letters Omega and Alpha.
The “Tomb of the Witness”
At the centre of Catacomb B stands the only two-storey arcosolium in the complex. Nearby, a unique raised tomb was carved above ground in the form of a sarcophagus. Known as the “Tomb of the Witness,” it has bases or traces of capitals at its ends, suggesting that a ciborium, a canopy supported by columns, once covered it. The tomb probably served as an altar and may have belonged to one of Milos’s first bishops or to one of the island’s early martyrs.
Inscriptions and painted decoration
Written evidence
Fragments of the red-capital inscription known as the “Elders” inscription survive inside a rectangular tabula ansata, a framed inscription panel, in the central hall of Catacomb B. Another inscription in the fifth arcosolium on the right wall of Catacomb B preserves rare Christian names and the ecclesiastical titles of presbyters, deacons, and virgins. It begins with the words “In the Lord” and refers to belief in the angel of the tomb.
The Catacomb B inscription uses the word thekion rather than the technical term arcosolium. An inscription in the third arcosolium on the right wall of Catacomb A refers to mothers being placed under oath in the name of Christ. Other inscriptions recorded by Sotiriou include examples with and without Christograms, monograms representing Christ. One inscription in the fourth arcosolium on the left wall of Catacomb A is enclosed in a square panel, with a Christogram below and crosses inside circles on either side.
The surviving inscriptions are generally written in red letters on tablets approximately 50 to 60 centimetres long and 10 centimetres high. Their wording and the use of Greek names provide evidence for the religious and social communities that used the cemetery.
Painted features and symbols
Two arcosolia in the second corridor retain fragments of a painted scene showing flowers and two birds, together with a Christogram and the letters Omega and Alpha. Other arcosolia preserve painted decoration along their rims and fragments of inscriptions in their curved upper sections. Earlier observations recorded blue-painted drums and red rims colored with miltos, a red mineral pigment, or rubrica. The bases of the arches carried vegetal motifs.
Christian symbols are relatively scarce within the surviving decoration. A green-painted fish above the head position in one grave probably identified the deceased’s Christian faith.
