Archaeologists have located a Roman burial tomb in the vicinity of Castelldefels Castle. The discovery could push back the practice of this rite in the northeast of the peninsula.
The archaeological excavations driven by the Castelldefels City Council and the Historical Research Group of Castelldefels (GREHIC) have uncovered a Roman burial tomb around the castle. The find, which preserves part of the skeleton, offers new clues about the Roman occupation of the hill and the funerary rituals of the time.
The tomb was covered by Roman tegulae, the classic flat tiles, and the body was positioned in a east-west axis, with the head facing west, aligned with the sunrise on the equinox. No funerary goods have been found, which is typical for this type of burial, according to the project leaders.
The archaeologist in charge of the work, Pere Lluís Artigues, will now study the ceramic material recovered from the stratum, while a specialised anthropologist will analyse the bone remains to determine the sex, age, and characteristics of the buried individual. The skeleton partially preserves the body, although it is missing the upper part of the skull, the fibulas, the patellas, and the foot bones, a disruption that experts attribute to the construction of a 20th-century pavement raised next to the tomb.
This discovery is part of the long sequence of occupation of the hill of the castle, where the existence of a Roman villa documented from the late 1st century BC to the 5th or 6th century AD was already known. This country house was built over an earlier Iberian settlement, the remains of which can be seen under a glass floor in the castle's church.
The connection to the Roman funerary world on the hill is not new: in 1989, a funerary monument dedicated around 100 AD by Valèria Haliné to her husband, Gai Trocina Synecdemus, both freedmen who prospered in this coastal area, was found embedded in the wall of the rectory.
The key to dating the tomb lies in the ceramics recovered from its surroundings: fragments of Terra Sigillata from southern Gallic and Arezzo productions, typical of the time of Augustus or the early Empire (1st century BC - 1st century AD). No late pieces or medieval or modern ceramics have been detected in the direct stratum, except for superficial contaminations from the 20th century.
If analyses confirm that the burial corresponds to the chronology of these fine wares (second half of the 1st century AD or early 2nd century), we would be looking at one of the earliest burials in the northeast of the peninsula, as the predominant practice until the late 2nd century AD was cremation. Researchers, however, remain cautious and do not rule out that the tomb could date from the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, when this rite was already widespread.
The location of the burial also provides urban information: in the Roman world, tombs were situated outside the inhabited area, so this find marks the outer limit of the villa at the time of death. Furthermore, the tomb is located very close to the historic path that for centuries connected the Poble Vell with the castle.
Laboratory work will be key to confirming the dating and learning more details about the deceased. The Castelldefels City Council and GREHIC plan to announce the results of the analyses in the coming months.
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