Tombs
The tombs of early Christian martyrs and heroes were the earliest occurrences of relics in the Christian church, and signified the importance they would come to have in the coming centuries as places and objects of deep power and religious importance. In the sixth century, the graves of saints and other holy men were viewed as places where the saints could be present on earth. These sites provided a place where people could come into contact with the distant power of the heavens. The tombs containing the remains of revered, faithful men were a point of connection for the lay people to whom the resurrection of Christ might seem far off and otherworldly.
In the period before the remains of saints was disturbed and body parts or significant objects were removed from cemeteries and tombs, these places functioned as spaces that people could travel to in order to partake of religious veneration and ritual at shrines at the foot of noteworthy graves. The geography and mapping of the important tombs of saints was significant to religious practice, and as the Christian cult of saints developed, a shift occurred to focus on the transportable relics and reliquaries rather than the fixed tombs. This allowed for relics to be transported to and from various Cathedrals and used within religious ceremonies such as liturgies and saint's feast days.
