Columbarium

Columbarium (Lat.), a dove-cot or pigeon-house, which probably differed little in form from those in modern use, but was sometimes built on a much larger scale, as we read in Varro of as many as five thousand birds being kept in the same house. The same name was applied to the niches or pigeon-holes in a particular kind of sepulchral chamber in which the urns (ollæ) containing the ashes of dead bodies burned were deposited. Each niche usually contained two urns, and the four walls of the sepulchre sometimes contained as many as one hundred niches or more. The names of the persons were inscribed underneath. Tombs of this description were chiefly used by great families for depositing the ashes of their slaves and dependants.