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The city of Arucci, located in the deserted area of San Mamés plains (Aroche, Huelva), was founded in the Augustus period, sometime in the last two decades of the first century B.C., and represents the end of a long process of territorial control and pacification in the Baeturia Celtica. Through an ex-novo establishment, this settlement had the typical elements of the urban configuration of Roman cities in the Hispanic and Western Mediterranean context. The results of more than two decades of digs and geophysical research allow us to clearly define both its intra moenia spaces, public buildings, roads, and domestic areas, as well as its suburbiae, necropolis, monumental buildings, etc.
As far as its extension is concerned, we can deduce about 8 hectares with its immediate suburban area, although the area within city walls is practically half of this. The walled enclosure has an irregular polygonal floor plan, with a structure that adapts to the topography of the terrain and a maximum axis of 235 m. and a width of 215 m.
On the one hand, regarding the digs, their data have shown that the key moments of the city seem to take place during the Julio-Claudian dynasty, with the construction of its forensic complex in the Caligula-Claudius period, a process that will be implemented during the Flavian dynasty, focusing on thermal baths in its southwest corner, a possible macellum next to the forum, a campus in the northern area outside the walls, an aqueduct, etc. The numerous explorations in the settlement provide evidence of a continuous occupation until the fourth or fifth century A.D., a period through which a progressive decadence can be seen, both in the structures and in the administration itself – this began in the first half of the third century A.D. –, with processes of haulage and amortisation of materials from public areas that will end with a residual occupation.
On the other hand, as for the geophysical prospecting, the results allow identifying, besides the elements already indicated, the existence of possible buildings with control, administration, and service functions. On this matter, the study of ground plans may lead to the establishment of the existence of a possible portorium next to the southern gate of the city as well as a hospitium in the north of the thermal baths. These hypotheses will have to be confirmed in future digs, but they can be viable, especially bearing in mind the sense of frontier and administrative control that this city had.
Outside the city walls, in the suburbiae, there is a series of buildings and environments that provide a better understanding of the city and its role. This is the case of the great public architecture represented by the campus. Excavation of the enclosure has revealed the existence of an aedes in line with its entrance, as well as a series of rooms arranged around a four-columned patio identified as a schola, the seat of a collegium iuvenum. As far as the funerary world is concerned, there are two small sectors corresponding to the northern and southern necropolis, both dating from the first and third centuries A.D. As of today, the funerary architecture is defined by enclosures with graves in pits under irregular roofs of different materials, or in the best of cases, under low quadrangular plinths with a possible libation channel. Cremations took place in boxes of stone, tegula, or brick, covered by tegulae arranged horizontally and gable roofs. As for the funus, the grave goods were monopolised by pieces of a ritual nature, mainly bowls, plates, pitchers and vessels of ceramic and terra sigillata, as well as glass, to which are added a high percentage of unguent jars.
As a final summary, it can be stated that the excavation data, together with those provided by geophysics, undoubtedly support the model of settlement in the territory for the Roman period based on the foundation and establishment of a service city. A small metropolis with all the elements of classical architecture and town planning that allow territorial control and administration. It is, therefore, a clearly classical model of urban implantation, an ex-novo foundation at the end of the first century B.C., that saw an important process of monumentalism in the Caligula-Claudius period and the early stages of the Flavian dynasty. This process was followed by a period of urban expansion and transformation throughout the second century A.D. when public spaces began to be invaded, the porticoed margines began to be compartmentalised, etc. The next century was characterised, after the first moments of the Severe period, by a progressive transformation and dismantling of the public elements of the city, with the appearance of spolia, various officinae that gradually dismantled and reused building materials from the city. This process would continue until the end of the fourth century, but in an increasingly residual way, until at the beginning of the fifth century A.D. when the city was an accumulation of ruins without any type of habitation or occupation.
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- Presentación
- Santiago Martínez Caballero, Termes
- Margarita Orfila, Pollentia
- Carmen Aranegui Gascó, Saguntum
- Clara Forn Perramón, Pepita Padrós Martí, Baetulo
- Manuel Martín-Bueno, Municipium Augusta Bilbilis
- David Vivó Codina, Gerunda
- Mª. A. Magallón Botaya, P. Sillières, J.A. Asensio Esteban, Ch. Rico, M. Navarro Caballero, Labitolosa
- Marta Santos, Joaquim Tremoleda, Pere Castanyer, Elisa Hernández, Municipium Emporiae
- Angel Morillo Cerdán, Victorino García Marcos, Legio VII Gemina
- José Luis Ramírez Sábada, María García-Barberena Unzu, Pompelo
- Rebeca Rubio Rivera, Ercavica
- Miguel Ángel de la Iglesia Santamaría, Francesc Tuset Bertran, Colonia Clunia Sulpicia
- Jesús García Sánchez, José Manuel Costa-García, Segisamo
- Javier Andreu Pintado, Los Bañales de Uncastillo
- Pedro Rodríguez Oliva, Malaca
- Dario Bernal Casasola, Gades
- Thomas G. Schattner, Munigua
- José Beltrán Fortes, Michael Heinzelmann, Janine Lehmann, Diego Romero Vera, Arne Schröder, Carissa Aurelia
- Salvador Montañés Caballero, María Luisa Loza Azuaga, Asido Caesarina
- Maria del Camino Fuertes Santos, Ategua
- Juan M. Campos Carrasco, Javier Bermejo Meléndez, Onoba Aestuaria
- Javier Bermejo Meléndez, Juan M. Campos Carrasco, Arucci
- Lourdes Roldán Gómez, Juan Blánquez Pérez, Colonia Libertinorum Carteia
- José Ildefonso Ruiz Cecilia, Colonia Genetiva Julia : Urso
- Javier Bermejo Meléndez, Juan M. Campos Carrasco, Ciudades romanas de la Provincia Baetica : una valoración a partir del proyecto CVB
- João Pedro Bernardes, Catarina Viegas, Celso Candeias, Balsa
- Virgílio Lopes, Myrtilis
- Vasco Gil Mantas, Imperatoria Salacia
- Pedro C. Carvalho, Adolfo Fernández, Armando Redentor, Catarina Tente, José Cristóvão, Lidia Fernandes, Ricardo Costeira de Silva, Sofia Lacerda, Tomas Cordero, Igaedis
- Emilio Gamo Pazos, Juan José Gordón Baeza, José María Murciano Calles, Rafael Sabio González, Ángel Villa González, Augustobriga
- Catarina Viegas, João Pedro Bernardes, Rui Roberto de Almeida, Ossonoba
- Pedro C. Carvalho, Pedro Sobral de Carvalho, João Perpétuo, Vissaium