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Home > Magazines > Archaeology Odyssey > November/December 2003

The Mystery of Theoderic’s Tomb Solved!

The sixth-century A.D. Roman-gothic king built it to last

By Harry Rand

One of the most mysterious buildings in all of Western architecture—the tomb of Theoderic (454–526 C.E.), king of the Ostrogoths (see the sidebar to this article)—glowers at the end of a tree-lined avenue in Ravenna, Italy. The tomb’s heavy, brooding presence has prompted one modern observer to describe it as a “monstrous object flung from a distant planet”.1 The story of the tomb’s construction and improbable survival is a crucial episode in Western history, when the Roman Empire and Christianity set out on the common course they were to share for hundreds of years. The Goths, a loose affiliation […]

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Footnotes

1.

See Dennis Groh, “The Arian Controversy: How it Divided Early Christianity,” BR 10:01.

2.

A video view of the interior of Theoderic’s tomb can be seen at www.turismo.ravenna.it/frame_citta.htm

Endnotes

1.

Antonio Paolucci, Ravenna: An Art Guide (Florence: Scala, 1971/1976), p. 26.

2.

According to Peter Llewellyn (Rome in the Dark Ages [New York: Praeger, 1971], p. 25), Theoderic “acquired a respect for learning and the ways of settled government” while living in Constantinople. Nevertheless, he may have remained illiterate.

3.

The only contemporary source to mention the tomb’s roof, the Anonymous Valesii, does not enlighten us on the need for this monstrous construction.

4.

Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, Pelican History of Art (New York: Penguin, 1965), p. 192.

5.

Some have argued that the upper story was never finished, but this claim seems unwarranted given the lavish and careful labors expended on the entirety.

6.

John Moorehead, Theoderic in Italy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 249.

7.

Moorehead, Theoderic, p. 248.

8.

Moorehead, Theoderic, p. 247.