Mass cremations, in which several bodies were burned in a ustrinum simultaneously or in succession, were efficient but were used only for the poor, or during epidemics, or on battlefields.
Strabo describes it as a travertine enclosure with a metal grating (presumably on top of the wall) and black poplars planted inside it.
[4] A fine alabaster urn[5] and six large rectangular cippi of travertine were found in excavations in 1777 at the corner of the Corso and Via degli Otto Cantonia (now Via dei Pontefici).
[8] The remains of an ancient Roman structure were discovered in 1703 under the Casa della Missione, just northwest of the Piazza di Monte Citorio, with an orientation like that of the columns of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius.
Architect and topographer Francesco Bianchini named it the "ustrinum of the Antonines" on the hypothesis that it was the site of the funeral pyre for members of that dynasty.