Cagliari, Holy Sepulchre Bath

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is located in the homonymous square in the Marina district.
The calcareous rock bench is engraved by a series of parallel cuts, which testify that the site was formerly affected by intense quarrying for the extraction of stone blocks, an activity already known, however, in different parts of the Marina district.
At the center of the sacristy, a circular basin with a diameter of about m 2.30 and a depth of m 1 has been identified, dug into the rock, with a plastered interior, three steps designed to facilitate the descent into it, a sort of seat delimited on the edge and a small channel with a fictile supply pipe.
It is excluded that it could be a cistern or a thermal system and, even with caution, we are inclined to interpret the artifact as a baptismal bath. From a typological point of view, it can be compared in Sardinia with the circular pool under the former cathedral of San Pantaleo in Dolianova. Unfortunately, no material objects useful to confirm the hypothesis have been recovered.
The proposed dating, at the end of the 4th century, would also suggest the existence of a church connected to the supposed baptistery.
In the months of February and March 2001, the floor of a small room connected to the sacristy was dismantled. The archaeological investigation has made it possible to identify a rectangular-shaped tank with rounded angles, also dug into the rock, about 1.60 m long, about 70 cm wide and 90 cm deep. Inside, among the filling land, numerous ceramic and vitreous artifacts have been recovered in fragments, lights, animal bones, oyster and mussel shells, fish bones. The dating of the lights dates back to the second century A.D.
The set of data in this case leads us to hypothesize a pagan place of worship, perhaps connected to the necropolises in the neighborhood.

History of the excavations
The tank was brought back to view in June 2000, during work carried out to restore the sacristy of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from humidity.

Bibliography
R. Martorelli-D. Mureddu-F. Pinna-A.L. Sanna, “New data on the topography of Cagliari in late ancient and early medieval times from excavations in the churches of Sant'Eulalia and the Holy Sepulchre”, in Journal of Christian Archaeology, LXXIX, 2003, pp. 395-397.