Within the museum at St. Paul’s Catacombs, you’ll learn all about Roman burial practices. Here, you can see professional mourners weeping for the deceased as they walk along in a huge funeral procession. Early on, Romans cremated their dead, but later, burying the intact body became popular. The corpse was kept at home for nine days so that various rituals could be performed. Glass bottles held perfumes that were poured over the body to mask the smell of death. If the individual was cremated, the bottles would be tossed into the funeral pyre to temper the odor of burning flesh.