A stray cat gave an Italian man “the most incredible experience” of his life after steering him into a 2,000-year-old tomb in rock cliffs near his apartment building in the country's capital.
Rome resident Mirko Curti told the Guardian that he was chasing the cat with his friend Tuesday night when they saw it scamper towards the opening in a rock.
After following the cat inside, the two men discovered a rock-like subterranean burial chamber surrounded by stone alcoves typically used to hold Roman funeral urns, La Repubblica reported.
“We found ourselves in front of the tomb with at least a hundred bones scattered around," Curti told Funweek. According to the website, heavy rains this week had probably made a dent in the rocks covering the tomb’s entrance and caused them to crumble.
According to the Guardian, archeologists said the existing niches, which were designed to store ashes in urns, proved that the pile of bones were unrelated to the tomb and had most likely tumbled in from a separate burial space inside the cliff. They added that the chamber dated from between the 1st century BC and the 2nd century AD.
Head archeologist, Paola Filippini, said the entrance to the tomb has been cordoned off due to safety reasons, and her team aims to conduct further researches in order to determine the exact date of the site and the bones, La Repubblica wrote.
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