You won’t find this on a house renovation show

Intact Roman funerary chamber found under house in Spain

 “Renovation work on a private home in the Andalusian town of Carmona, 20 miles east of Seville, has revealed an intact Roman funerary chamber dating to between the 1st century B.C. and the 1st century A.D. The family discovered a small archway when they knocked down a wall on their patio. The opening led to a columbarium, an underground chamber built to hold cinerary urns.

“There are eight loculi (niches) in the wall, six of them containing urns. The urns are made of three different materials: two types of limestone and glass. The glass urns are encased inside protective lead containers.”

Carmona was a Tartessian-Turdetani settlement until arrival of Phoenician traders from Tyre, on the eastern Mediterranean coast, Wikipedia says.

“José Avilés, 39, the owner of the house who is known by neighbours as Pepe told local media that he was astounded by the discovery. ‘We never imagined when we were building an extension to the house that we should find such a thing,’ he said.

“’It’s all happened very quickly but our intention is to keep the chamber open, preserve it and protect it and somehow incorporate into the house,’ he said.

“’But we’ll have to see what the archaeological teams say,’ he added.”

It must be a wonderful thing, to find two-millennia-old artefacts beneath your home.