An underground system of tunnels and chambers with recesses for graves, used (in former times) as a cemetery; a subterranean tunnel system used for burying the dead, as in Paris or ancient Rome.
With the fall of Rome and the first barbaric invasions at the beginning of the fifth century, the whole area became extremely dangerous, and the use of the catacombs as cemeteries ceased.
“Just as the early Christians met together in the Roman catacombs to hold their ceremonies, forbidden by the authorities, so the first Jehovah’s Witnesses of Galicia, back in the ’50’s, used an hórreo. . . .
The pre-eminent expert on the Abashevo culture, A. Pryakhin, concluded that it originated from contacts between Fatyanovo / Balanovo and Catacomb / Poltavka peoples in the southern forest-steppe.
With the so- called conversion of Constantine in 313 C.E., the catacombs became the property of the Church of Rome, and some ultimately assumed colossal proportions.
While in the area of the Appian Way, you might want to visit the famous catacombs—several hundred miles of underground tunnels that served as burial places.