Chapter Fifteen

The Inscriptions Speak

From 1953 to 1958, Guarducci focused her attention on studying the inscriptions on the Graffiti Wall and the adjacent Red Wall. In the dark Necropolis, she would study the inscriptions by flashlight. On occasion in the half-light, she would close her eyes and draw them with her hands, as the ancient Christians had, in an effort to understand their meaning. Sometimes she would even feel the stones themselves, as if seeking a spiritual unity with the authors. Ferrua had reported the inscriptions to be meaningless or unintelligible graffiti. Guarducci, after unflagging study day and night for five years, uncovered profound meaning.

Guarducci’s task resembled the most famous of all feats of epigraphy — the discovery and use of the Rosetta Stone. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs were idea symbols later replaced by phonetic symbols linked to spoken words. The hieroglyphs became a dead language: still present throughout Egypt, but unreadable to anyone. In 1796, the Rosetta Stone was discovered. It contained substantially identical texts of the same decree in hieroglyphs, Greek, and Egyptian, providing the key to unlocking the forgotten language.

For Guarducci, the key to unlock the meaning of the inscriptions in the Necropolis was an understanding of the early Christians, their faith, and the danger surrounding them. Symbols such as a “P” surrounded by keys would be meaningless to a non-Christian, but a Christian would see this and recall Christ’s words to Peter: “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 16:19). Likewise, the Alpha and Omega symbols (the beginning and the end of the Greek alphabet) would appear as meaningless prattle to non-Christians, but they held significant meaning to Christians, for whom Christ is the Alpha and Omega.161 An “R” symbol with a line to a “T” (also used as a cross symbol) would have had no meaning to a non-Christian Roman but profound meaning to an early Christian, to whom it represented resurrection for all, purchased by Christ’s death. To understand these inscriptions, it was essential to view them through the lens of ancient Christian belief. These were phonetic symbols used not simply for sounds, but also for complex ideas.

In the gulags of the Soviet Union as early as the 1920s, prisoners from the White Sea prison camps developed a nearly universal “top code,” allowing them to communicate with each other by sounds not understandable to their guards. In much the same way, and for the same reasons, early Christians developed their own code of inscriptions, understandable to each other, but not to the Roman authorities.

Guarducci broke this code.¹⁶²

Various Greek letters were used as symbols for spiritual concepts. The Alpha and Omega symbols, for example, signified the beginning and end. A Christ symbol (Chi-Rho) followed by Alpha and Omega expressed the thought that Christ was the beginning and the end. A name followed by Omega and Alpha meant that someone’s life had ended, but their real life with Christ in heaven had just begun.¹⁶³ Similarly, Guarducci found a whole range of letters representing spiritual realities, such as “R” for resurrection, “M” or “MA” for Mary, and “T” for the cross. Further, she realized lines were used to connect spiritual meanings with names — for example, the Christ symbol connected by a line to an “R” (for resurrection) and a “T” (for the cross), connected by another line to a “V” (for victory).164

The Christians also communicated in abbreviations because of their medium: scratches on rock, made quickly to avoid detection. Think of the difference between communicating through tweets or texts today and the full sentence structure found in books. Current acronyms used as shorthand in social media, such as “LOL” or “OMG,” while not comparable in substance, could arguably be comparable in abbreviation to these early Christian graffiti.

Guarducci examined Christian inscriptions across the area that comprised the ancient Roman Empire — particularly in Asia Minor and in Rome. These proved that the code was not random. The inscriptions had been used over and over again by Christians at many early sites and possessed established, well understood meanings. Guarducci’s encyclopedic survey of several hundred years of Christian epigraphs proved that the Christians were indeed speaking to each other in coded language unknown to anyone who did not understand their faith. To draw another modern comparison, these Christian inscriptions from the first through fourth centuries would be the equivalent of Capitalist graffiti on Lenin’s tomb during the Cold War.

The clear heroism and deep faith and courage of these early Christians in the heart of the Roman capital deeply affected Guarducci. They were to her a voice from two thousand years ago commanding the “greatest attention.”¹⁶⁵ As she wrote:

In studying the problem of St. Peter’s tomb, we find a third voice, that of the epigraphs, joining in the eloquent testimony of ancient authors and excavations. It is a voice that we must hear with the greatest attention, since the epigraphs are usually precious witnesses bringing us the direct, live echo of past events.166

She had to travel back to her own early Christian roots to recall the early teachings that provided the code to unlock the inscriptions. In the words of an old English song, once she was blind, but now she could see. Over time the inscriptions deeply changed Guarducci herself. Virtually all of her work prior to the inscriptions had been done in Crete and preclassical and classical Greece. Her physical work with these ancient Christian inscriptions, coupled with her realization of the deep and genuine faith of the early believers, seems to have greatly deepened Guarducci’s own faith.

The theological implications of the Graffiti Wall are still profound and moving today. The inscriptions highlight the continuity of Christian belief down through the millennia. Peter occupied a central role in the Church and in the hearts of the early believers. Early Christians prayed to Christ and also invoked the aid of Mary, Peter, and other saints. From earliest times, Christians believed in eternal life unlocked by Christ’s death upon the Cross. These ancient inscriptions made clear that Christianity was not simply an evolving cult. As early as 250–300, Christians believed in the same basic tenets we accept today, and people were willing to risk their lives to create the inscriptions that expressed these beliefs.

The Graffiti Wall stood next to the Red Wall, where the bones presumed to be those of Peter had been found years before. The Red Wall was built of bricks containing seals dated to A.D. 160. It had been partly covered in 250 by the Graffiti Wall.167 Guarducci first found within the Graffiti Wall the tantalizing inscription, “Near Peter.”¹⁶⁸ Then, Guarducci made an explosive discovery. Placing the inscription recovered from Ferrua’s house in its proper place on the Graffiti Wall, she read, “Peter is within.”¹⁶⁹ Near the Red Wall, Guarducci found even earlier Christian inscriptions such as the familiar Christian fish symbol dating from the early 100s. She also found inscriptions such as, “Peter, pray for me” inscribed in the late 100s. Over and over, she deciphered references to Peter on the Graffiti Wall — in the end, she found his name inscribed there more than twenty times.¹⁷⁰ This could not be a coincidence. Clearly early Christians had prayed to Peter here, in the presence of his actual relics. In fact, the Graffiti Wall bearing these repeated inscriptions to Peter seemed very much like an ancient tombstone marking his final resting place.

She did not realize it yet, but after five long years, Guarducci had found the clues that would eventually solve the mystery.