Hypogeum:
While excavating hundreds of graves dating from the third century B.C. through the third century A.D. in a Roman necropolis on the island’s eastern side, archaeologists from France’s National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) found stairs descending to a long corridor and a hypogeum—a rock-cut underground burial chamber normally reserved for high-status individuals—predating the Roman burials. More than 100 tombs of this type were excavated in the 1970s and 1980s at Casabianda, another Etruscan cemetery just to the south. [“A Funeral Fit for Etruscans,” Benjamin Leonard, Archaeology (July/August 2019)]
Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum
Source: Wikipedia
