Cella Spetichora Visitor Centre and the Early Christian Necropolis 

The late Roman, early Christian cemetery of Sopianae, the Roman predecessor of the city of Pécs, was listed in UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000. The architecture and frescos of the collection of findings unearthed, offer an extremely versatile and complex overview of the early Christian funerary architecture and art of the northern and western provinces of the Roman Empire. Of the World Heritage Sites in Hungary the Early Christian Necropolis of Pecs is the only one that has been recorded in the cultural history category of the UNESCO World Heritage List. 

The late Roma cemeteries of the northern and western Roman provinces did not usually include a considerable amount of stone-built burial places. A unique feature of Sopianae's Christian cemetery is that a large number of buildings of this type is concentrated here, including small family crypts, larger community tombs, and funerary structures. Some of these boast painted interior featuring biblical scenes and Christian symbols, which enhance the uniqueness and universal cultural value of this collection of memorials.

 

The late antique Cemetery

The burial chamber was the resting place for mostly wealthy families. The underground section of the two-piece construction is a crypt, the actual burial chamber, where the deceased were placed in brick-wall graves, or less in sarcophagi. A memorial Chapel (memoria, mausoleum) was erected over this edifice. The two-storey structures had a twofold task: they served as a location for both  burials and rituals.

The two-storey burial Structures of Pécs demonstrate the mingle of Eastern and Western traditions, where the Balkan traditions of underground crypts and the fashion of the flashy over-the-ground buildings occur simultaneously; this is one of the peculiarities of late Roman Early Christian cemetery. Only the main walls of the upper level of the two-storey mausoleum are visible, while the lower burial chambers hidden under the ground have survived in much better condition for the posterity. On the modern corridors of the Cella Septichora Visitor Centre a special sight is revealed to the visitors, which the inhabitants of the 4th-century Sopianae could never see in this form.

A not less special section of it is the large, one-storey burial buildings sunk into the ground: the surviving 4-metre-high walls of the octagonal building of grave nr. V. are highly impressive, indeed.

An even more spectacular monument is the seven-lobe Calla Septichora found in 1938 found, and rediscovered in 2006 and 2007, which presumably is an unfinished mausoleum meant to a distinguished person or family; its layout was considered a curiosity in its time during the Roman Empire. Recent excavations demonstrated that it was built either at the end of the 4th century or in the early 5th century, however, the building was unfinished for several centuries, and it was completed only during the reign of the Árpád dynasty. Probably timber-framed buildings were erected over the Roman stone foundations, which were then destroyed during the Mongol invasion, and were dreaming a sleeping-beauty dream until 2007. Since then, unprecedented mass have visited the underground the ruins, and the former kingdom of the dead have been taken into possession by the living. Today conferences, lectures, cultural events are held within its impressive lobes.

Adam, Eve, Daniel, and an ambiguously interpreted figure of a man feature the walls of the burial chambers of the mausoleum at St. Stephen's Square. The well-known figures of Peter and Paul burial chamber include the Apostles Peter and Paul, Adam, Eve, Jonah, Mary, Noah, and four mysterious man's head luckily survived on the barrel vault recalls the gardens of the Paradise bequeathed the ideas of afterlife by the assignor of the wall paintings to the modern men in a unique way.

 

Localtion of the sites allowed to be visited 

The World Heritage sites are located to the south of the Cathedral, at St. Stephen Square (Szent István tér) and in the surrounding area. The entrance of Cella Septichora Visitor Centre at the top of the square can be reached by the walkway, while the Early Christian Cemetery is found in the centre of the same square.