Excavations in the surroundings of the Castell de Castelldefels have uncovered a Roman burial tomb, a finding that expands knowledge about the Roman villa that occupied the hill.
The archaeological work being carried out around the Castell de Castelldefels has allowed for the discovery of a Roman burial tomb, a finding that provides new data about life and death in the ancient Roman villa on which the monumental complex is situated. The project, funded by the Castelldefels City Council with the support of the Grup de Recerca Històrica de Castelldefels (GREHIC), has now entered a key phase of laboratory analysis.
The historian and member of GREHIC Alfonso López Borgoñoz explained that the archaeologist directing the work, Pere Lluís Artigues, will study the ceramic material recovered from the stratum, while a specialised anthropologist will analyse the skeletal remains to determine the sex, age, and characteristics of the buried individual.
The tomb has particular features that make it especially relevant. It was covered by Roman tiles, known as tegulae, and archaeologists are investigating whether it was a long pit covered flatly or the classic gabled structure, a type widely found in Barcino, Tarraco, Empúries, or Valentia from the 3rd century AD onwards.
The body was positioned along an east-west axis, with the head to the west and the feet to the east, directly aligned with the sunrise on the equinox. As is common in this type of burial, no funerary goods were found accompanying the deceased.
The human remains partially preserve the body, although the upper part of the skull is missing, as well as the fibulae, patellae, and foot bones. The tomb has suffered alteration in the past, most likely during the construction of a 20th-century pavement raised just beside it.
A Millennia-long Occupation on the Hill of the Castell
The finding is part of a sequence of occupation that dates back to the Iberian period. At the top of the hill, the existence of a Roman villa with different documented construction phases from the late 1st century BC, the 2nd century AD, and the first half of the 3rd century AD was already known, which lasted until the 5th or 6th century AD. This farmhouse was built, in turn, over the remains of an earlier Iberian settlement, the vestiges of which can currently be seen under a glass floor in the church of the castle.
The connection with the Roman funerary world on the hill is not new: in 1989, a funerary monument dedicated around the year 100 AD by Valèria Haliné to her husband, Gai Trocina Synecdemus, who was described as an optimal husband, was found embedded in the east wall of the rectory. Both were freedmen who prospered economically in this area of the Catalan coast.
Ceramics, Key to Dating
In the immediate vicinity of the tomb, in disturbed soil where fragments of the same tegulae from the cover appeared, fragments of high-quality red slip pottery, known as Terra Sigillata, have been recovered. Preliminary analyses identify productions from southern Gaul, imported from the Romanised south of France, and fragments from Italy, specifically from Arezzo, fine tableware from the time of Augustus or the early Empire.
So far, no productions of Hispanic origin or medieval or modern ceramics have been detected in the direct stratum, except for superficial contaminations from the 20th century, such as fragments of fibrecement or plastics. If the analyses confirm that the burial corresponds to the same chronology as these fine wares, that is, the second half of the 1st century AD or the beginning of the 2nd century AD, we would be facing an exceptionally early finding in the entire northeastern peninsula.
The researchers maintain scientific caution and do not rule out that the tomb could be later, from the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, when the rite of burial with tegulae was already widespread.
A Territorial Boundary and an Ancient Path to the Sea
The location of a burial has great urban value for archaeology: in the Roman world, tombs were always situated outside the inhabited area. Therefore, this pit clearly marks the outer limit of the Roman villa at the time of the deceased's death. Additionally, the tomb is located very close to the historic path that for centuries connected the Poble Vell with the Castell.
Laboratory work will now be crucial to establish the exact chronology of the burial and to better understand who the buried individual was. The Castelldefels City Council and GREHIC hope that the results of the analyses will allow for a more complete reading of this finding in the coming months, which could rewrite part of the history of the ancient Roman villa on the hill of the Castell.
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