Description
The Antiquarium of Via Donota is a small archaeological site at the foot of San Giusto Hill, behind Trieste's Roman theater: the remains of a Roman house that became a cemetery. In a small space it tells how the people of Tergeste lived, and died.
You can see the domus, built at the end of the 1st century BC on two levels to follow the slope, and the tombs dug into its rooms. A well and a latrine, full of everyday waste, revealed the habits of those who lived there. In a small room inside the tower of the medieval walls, the objects found in the excavations are on display.
Once the house was abandoned, from the 2nd century a wealthy family used its lower floor as a private burial ground. Later came more burials, many of them children, some laid in amphorae: a sign of the high infant mortality of late antiquity.
You can see the domus, built at the end of the 1st century BC on two levels to follow the slope, and the tombs dug into its rooms. A well and a latrine, full of everyday waste, revealed the habits of those who lived there. In a small room inside the tower of the medieval walls, the objects found in the excavations are on display.
Once the house was abandoned, from the 2nd century a wealthy family used its lower floor as a private burial ground. Later came more burials, many of them children, some laid in amphorae: a sign of the high infant mortality of late antiquity.