Loculus (architecture)

For the Roman soldier's kit, see Loculus (satchel).
Concrete loculi at Igualada Cemetery, Spain

Loculus (Latin, "little place"), plural loculi, is an architectural compartment or niche that houses a body, as in a catacomb, hypogeum, mausoleum or other place of entombment. In classical antiquity, the mouth of the loculus might be closed with a slab,[1] plain, as in the Catacombs of Rome, or sculptural, as in the family tombs of ancient Palmyra.

  1. ^ Katherine M. D. Dunbabin, The Roman Banquet: Images of Conviviality (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 254.