Among the earliest testimonies of Christianity in Sardinia certainly include the Catacombs of Sant’Antioco, which developed from the 3rd century around the Crypt of the Saint of the same name, patron saint of the Island.
By repurposing five hypogean chambers, part of the vast area of the Punic Necropolis dating back to the 6th cent. B.C. (some of these chambers are still appreciable in their original completeness and structure with the same visit to the Catacombs), the Christian community of Sulci, created a real collective cemetery for the adherents of the faith professed until death by the “follower of Christ” Antiochus. The latter, a “physician of bodies and souls” originally from Mauritania (in the Roman period much of northern Africa), is said to have been deported at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. as a slave, rebelling against the pagan laws of the empire, to Sulcitan Island; there, with his relentless preaching, he would found the first Christian community in the area.
After the martyr’s death, set by tradition in 127, his body was laid in the sarcophagus-altar today at the entrance to the Catacombs, and kept there until March 18, 1615: during that period the Crypt would retain its primitive function as a cultural area. Although in a condition of gradual decay, the Catacombs of St. Antiochus still retain very important elements, such that the place stands out at the head of all cemetery complexes in Sardinia. Mention should be made in this regard of the wall paintings, which are valuable albeit in their fragmentary nature: the figure of the “Good Shepherd,” a representation of Jesus in the role of guide and teacher; a funerary inscription that read “IN PACE VIBAS,” today decipherable in the last letters; and again animal and floral depictions, typical of Christian iconography.
These paintings basically affect the so-called arcosolium tombs, the most important and characteristic burials in this complex, which are named for the precisely arched shape. Of no less importance is the canopied tomb built in the chamber where tradition sees St. Antiochus expire. And then the various underground burials, loculi, and sandstone caisson overlays, which contributed, as early as the early Christian period, to the destruction of the frescoes.
