Bones of a Vulture among the Remains of Animals sacrificed on the “Burial of Romulus” below the Niger lapis in the Roman Forum

Abstract

IN 1899 Giacomo Boni, director of the diggings in the Roman Forum, discovered, in the area of the Comitium, below the Niger Lapis, a layer containing votive bronze statuettes and sherds attributed to the sixth to seventh century B.C., and many fragments of bones, horns and teeth of Sus, Ovis, Taurus, Capra and Canis, obviously remains of a sacrifice¹. This layer was enveloping the base of the ‘sacellum’, a monument (including the famous archaic Latin inscription) which Giacomo Boni identified with the “funestum locum in Comitio” (Festus) which, following the Roman tradition, was supposed to be the burial of Romulus, or of his adoptive father Faustulus.