The True Burial Site of Peter and Paul? Christians and Jews on the Appian Way

Despite the current catholic orthodoxy that the original burial sites of the martyr saints Peter and Paul were where they are still venerated – underneath their churches on the Vatican hill and on the Via Ostiense – a controversy still surrounds an enigmatic site at the third milestone of the Appian Way. The present, 17th-century church of Saint Sebastian was built over an early, simple cult site for the apostles and a 4th-century Basilica Apostolorum. Based on archaeological evidence, I will argue that it was here, in a former pozzolana mine, that the apostles were believed to have been buried from at least the 2nd century onwards, and trace how their cult developed from ordinary funerary cult to martyr cult.