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Many of the funerary monument types require columbarium epitaphs to go beneath the niches in which the funerary urns are placed. In the case of inhumation burials in which a sarcophagus is used, the owner would generally choose to put an equivalent inscription on the sarcophagus.
These inscriptions are quite small. They must be 100 characters or less. Plaque inscriptions on the exterior (or interior) of the monument will generally contain more information. They will generally include just the names of the people involved (or sometimes just the name of the deceased), the invocation of the gods of the dead, and sometimes some virtues or epithets. The biggest drawback to the burial societies is that the deceased is limited to just a columbarium epitaph as the exterior inscription records the burial guild or the person who paid for the monument originally. Columbarium or monument constructions will usually commemorate at least one person more than once: once on the plaque inscription on the outside and once on the small columbarium epitaph inside the monument by the urn.
The following are some examples of columbarium epitaphs from ancient Rome:
 A husband and wife who worked in a warehouse |
 A hairdresser in a large, aristocratic household. |
 Another hairdresser |
 A small inscription commemorating two people |
 An imperial bodyguard |
 A Roman citizen from Spain |
 A marble frame for a columbarium niche with inscriptions on the marble above and below the niche |
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