Vatican Necropolis

Archaeological explorations began in the early years of the pontificate of Pius XII, 1939 to 1958, and the Fabbrica dates the excavations that reached the tomb to 1939 to 1949. Second-century brick tomb buildings became, in the fourth century, the foundations of the first Petrine basilica: Constantine's builders moved over 40,000 cubic metres of earth to level the Vatican hill and demolished the tops of the tombs, and the Constantinian basilica had five naves divided by 88 columns, its floor level with the Trophy of Gaius. Twenty-two tomb buildings have been unearthed, calculated to have held around 1000 burials, and the inscriptions preserve names of individuals from imperial freedmen families. The Trophy of Gaius, the second-century funerary aedicule recorded by the priest Gaius and reported by Eusebius, survives in the Niche of the Pallia in the Confessio. On a fragment of plaster 3.2 by 5.8 centimetres from the red wall are the Greek letters PETR and ENI, read as Petros eni, Peter is here, or Petros en irene, Peter in peace.