The famous catacombs of ancient Rome are huge underground cemeteries, of which two Jewish catacomb complexes of uncertain age and 60 early-Christian catacombs have survived^{1, 2, 3}. Here we use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of wood originating from one of the Jewish catacombs and find that it pre-dates its Christian counterparts by at least 100 years. These results indicate that burial in Roman catacombs may not have begun as a strictly Christian practice, as is commonly believed^{1, 3, 4}, but rather that its origin may lie in Jewish funerary customs.

1. Faculty of Theology, Utrecht University, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands
2. AMS Facility Utrecht, Subatomic Physics Department, Utrecht University, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands
3. National Herbarium Nederland, Utrecht University Branch, 3585 CS Utrecht, The Netherlands

Correspondence to: Leonard V. Rutgers¹ Email: lrutgers@theo.uu.nl