Pompeii, Monumento Funerario del Fondo Prisco. Tomb at Fondo Prisco.
Excavated 1903. Covered again after the excavation.
Bibliography
Casale A., Bianco
A., Primo contributo alla topografia del
suburbio pompeiano: Supplemento al n. 15 di ANTIQUA ottobre-dicembre 1979, 26,
p. 35, fig. 10.
Della Corte M., Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1921,
pp. 415-423.
Elia O., 1975. La scultura pompeiana in tufo: Cronache
Pompeiane I, p. 121, p. 132, fig. 8-9.
Garcia y Garcia
L., 2017. Scavi Privati nel Territorio di
Pompei. Roma: Arbor Sapientiae, no. 45, pp. 307-309, fig. 136-7.
Stefani G., 2000.
La Villa del fondo Prisco in località
Cività in Casali di ieri Casali di oggi - Architetture rurali e tecniche
agricole nel territorio di Pompei e Stabiae, Mostra 2000. pp. 45-48.
Stefani G., 1998.
Pompei oltre la vita: Nuove testimonianze
dalle necropoli, p. 106.
Monumento Funerario del Fondo Prisco. Plan of villa and tomb.
The Villa rustica was found on the fondo of Antonio Prisco, at the Civita-Giuliana, Boscoreale (today Pompeii).
It was excavated by cav. Carlo Rossi-Filangieri from February to July 1903.
The building followed an already existing public roadway on the western front side.
On the roadway was an adjoining burial monument “D”.
The front façade was decorated with two portrait busts and a marble slab, on which however the funeral title had not yet been incised.
See Della Corte
M., Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità,
1921, p. 416.
Burial monument D.
The solid and elegant tomb “D” was, most likely, a dependence of the described Villa rustica.
It measured 3,30m at the side, and 5.45m high, all covered with white stucco and carefully made.
It was worked with big raised ashlars in the top half, while the lower half, protruding and slightly pyramidal, was smooth. A rich cornice bordered the upper ashlars at the point where, rising, the masonry formed a tholos.
In the face turned to the west, just below the cornice, a large slab of white marble, 1m x 0.65m, was embedded in the wall.
Unfortunately, it was without an inscription, ready perhaps to receive the engraving of a new title to replace an older one, a fragment of which perhaps was that, engraved on a slab of marble 0.13m high, 0.20m wide and 0.06m thick, in letters 0.05m high of careless execution which came from inside the tomb.
![Monumento Funerario del Fondo Prisco.
Fragment of engraved marble slab found inside the tomb.
[vixit annis] XV m(ensibus) XI
[fecit fi]lius
Now in Boscoreale Antiquarium. SAP inventory number 34131.
In the face turned to the west, just below the cornice, a large slab of white marble, 1m x 0.65m, was embedded in the wall.
Unfortunately it had no inscription, ready perhaps to receive the engraving of a new title to replace an older one, a fragment of which perhaps was this, engraved on a slab of marble 0.13m high, 0.20m wide and 0.06m thick, in letters 0.05m high of careless execution which came from inside the tomb.](Tomb%20Fondo%20Prisco_files/image004.jpg)
Monumento
Funerario del Fondo Prisco.
Fragment of engraved marble slab found inside the tomb.
See Notizie
degli Scavi di Antichità, 1921, p. 422.
According to Stefani, this reads
[…vixit annis] XV, m(ensibus) XI/ [fecit fi]/lius
See Notizie
degli Scavi di Antichità, 1921, p. 422, fig. 4.
If the funeral title had been recovered, we would have known who was portrayed in the two travertine busts.
They were found in a special semi-circular niche, 0.90m high, located just below the previously mentioned marble slab.
The two interesting portraits depict certainly the couple who provided for the erection of the monument.
Being placed rather high up, the busts were not finished and here and there they were only sketched.
The trunks were shaped as herms: 0.73m high.
In the east wall, 1.50 m above the ground, was the door, monolithic, of Vesuvian stone, mounted between threshold, architrave and door-jambs equally monolithic and of the same stone, 0.80 m high. The door-jambs being slightly inclined at the top, the door, which opened from the outside in, appeared pyramidal externally.
The interior of the tomb, a columbarium (a place for the respectful storage of cinerary urns) all covered with white stucco, consisted of two floors, the higher at the height of the threshold of the door, the lower, about 2 m underneath the first, and accessible by a central hatch of 0.70 m at the side.
In the upper floor, in each corner was embedded a terracotta pot over a small masonry pedestal; at the same level a channel was open along the walls; in the western wall two circular openings, opened above the mentioned channel, communicating with the exterior; in the opposite eastern and western walls are two semi-circular niches, 0.60 m high.
The lower floor was a columbarium of thirty-two niches, presenting eight semi-circular niches on each wall, arranged in two superimposed orders.
Of the pots, and the remains they held, only a few fragments were found, because the columbarium had already been disturbed in ancient times, by searchers who penetrated from the tholos, demolishing the solid masonry.
See Stefani G., 1998. Pompei oltre la
vita: Nuove testimonianze dalle necropoli, p. 106-8.
See Della Corte M., Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1921, p. 416, fig. 4.
Monumento Funerario del Fondo Prisco. Two travertine portraits busts found in a semi-circular niche below the marble plaque on the west side of the tomb.
Now in the Museo
di Paestum. Collezione Francesco Fienga. Photo by A Fienga.
See Garcia y
Garcia L., 2017. Scavi Privati nel Territorio di Pompei. Roma: Arbor Sapientiae, p. 308, fig. 137.
From Farm of Fondo Prisco,
Boscoreale. February 2021.
Tufa
Sphynx-shaped tombstone re-used as a kerbstone, on display in Pompeii
Antiquarium.
Photo courtesy of
Fabien Bièvre-Perrin (CC BY-NC-SA).
From Farm of Fondo Prisco,
Boscoreale. February 2021.
Detail
of tufa Sphynx-shaped tombstone re-used as a kerbstone, on display in Pompeii
Antiquarium.
Photo courtesy of
Fabien Bièvre-Perrin (CC BY-NC-SA).
From Farm of Fondo Prisco, Boscoreale. February 2021.
Rear of tufa Sphynx-shaped tombstone re-used as a kerbstone, on
display in Pompeii Antiquarium.
Photo
courtesy of Fabien Bièvre-Perrin (CC BY-NC-SA).
From Farm of Fondo Prisco, Boscoreale. February 2021.
Rear of tufa Sphynx-shaped tombstone re-used as a kerbstone, on
display in Pompeii Antiquarium.
Photo
courtesy of Fabien Bièvre-Perrin (CC BY-NC-SA).
Monumento
Funerario del Fondo Prisco.
Statue of a seated sphinx with feline body, female head and large wings.
Possibly dated to 2nd century B.C.
It would have originally been a funeral monument but by 79AD it had been placed, with another similar one of which only the head was found, at the entrance to the Villa rustica nel Fondo di Antonio Prisco.
Now in Boscoreale Antiquarium. SAP inventory number 25896.
Monumento
Funerario del Fondo Prisco.
Statue of a seated sphinx with feline body, female head and large wings.