STELE. - A parallelepiped of stone or marble used either to mark a burial and therefore bearing an inscription, or to delimit a boundary or limit.
Cippus stones are known from the most remote antiquity and were also used by Christians for their open-air tombs in Rome and throughout the regions of the Empire, adapting to local forms. Examples include the cippus of Abercius (q.v.) and that of Tollia Asclepiake (q.V. BASSILLA). Examples of Christian boundary or property cippi, sometimes cylindrical in shape, are preserved in the Lateran Christian Museum, such as those of the Venetian Irenianae with the monogram R from the Panfil villa, a cippus with an inscription from the 5th century on one side and from the 7th century on the other, indicating a property of the monastery of SS. Andrew and Stephen near Santa Maria Maggiore; a small terminal column relating to a property of the diaconia of Sant'Adriano al Foro in Rome; and finally one referring to a fulling mill with the date 1029.