Roman Portugal

In this paper we deal with some mosaics found in two seaside settlements in the Algarve (Portugal), Boca do Rio (Vila do Bispo, Faro) and Abicada (Mexilhoreira Grande, Portimão). Mosaics from Boca do Rio were found in 1870 by Sebastião Philippes Martins Estácio da Veiga, and just one of them is preserved today, though we know some others through two detailed drawings and a plan made by Amélia Claranges Lucotte. The villa of Abicada has been known since 1917 and its sophisticated pars urbana was excavated between 1937-38 by José Formosinho. The mosaics of both archaeological sites were studied in 1987 by Prof. José Maria Blázquez who offered a first stylistical approach to some of the most outstanding floors. The progress of research produced in current years in the fields of archaeological research, Roman architecture and mosaics of the Algarve enable us to address these mosaics again, to study them from a broader perspective. We analyse their stylistic and com-positional characteristics, paying special attention to the similarities with mosaics in other rural settlements in the area, like the best-known examples of Milreu and Cerro da Vila. They all share some stylistic and technical characteristics that enable us to place them in a common chronological and productive horizon, next to the mosaic production of other Roman sites of the Algarve. Thus, close parallels of geometrical and ornamental style in neighbour mosaics is useful both for suggesting a date to these non-stratigraphically dated mosaics and for defining the features of the widespread mosaic production in the Algarve.

The following article gives a brief overview of currently known apicultural remains from the Roman Empire in the Western Iberian Peninsula and then applies an onomastic model using the Hispano-Celtic roots arc- “bear” and medu- “honey/mead” to reveal an expanded network of beekeeping activity coinciding with known sites of apiculture from the Roman period. Using this model, one district, which currently has no identified apicultural remains from the Roman period, Castelo Branco, is examined to demonstrate the viability of using personal names as a litmus test for apicultural activity (and the concomitant presence of bears historically, which seem to be intricately tied to honey names). The model also provides another index by which to gauge the presence of ancient apiculture aside from hive remains. This link allows us to contextualize medieval and Early Modern apiary-walls (muros-apiários) in a wider chronological framework.

Keywords: Roman beekeeping, Celtic personal names, honey, Idanha-a-Velha, Castelo Branco, muros-apiários

[Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting 2018] The landscapes of the Iberian Peninsula were famous in antiquity for their richness in metals, and scholars have long claimed that these metals were a draw for colonial interest in the region from early on. This is especially true following the Roman conquest of Iberia in the late 3 rd century BCE, when the scale of mining increased dramatically to accommodate the growing needs of the Roman Empire. This was made possible through dramatic shifts in the organization of labor and the technological practices surrounding mining. Scholars often attribute these changes to Roman innovation, ignoring the long-term history of indigenous mining in many areas and the potential significance of local people in the successes of the industry. In this paper, I challenge this conventional interpretation and explore the diverse contributions of local people to the mining industry, from their knowledge of local resource distribution to their work as laborers in mining and subsidiary industries. I argue that Roman conquest significantly transformed the everyday lives of local people, who in turn participated in the diverse communities of practice in Roman mining landscapes, contributing knowledge, skills, and resources that fueled this industry so key to the creation of the Roman Empire.
Session Abstract: From the Romans to the Inca, empires have conquered regional ethnic groups to gain access to territory and resources. While past research has focused on the role of intruding colonizers and assumes a passive response from smaller ethnic groups, this session takes a bottom-up approach and explores how processes of colonialism, defined as practices of control between two asymmetrical powers, are reacted to by subordinate groups and how local active agency transforms their own identities through alterations in their daily aspects of life. Were foreign practices resisted, adopted, or combined and hybridized with current practices? Did different social groups respond differently to the foreign group? This session takes a multi-component focus in examining both cultural (ex. architecture, ceramics) and biological data in order to understand the many facets in how societies respond to conquest. Additionally, this session examines both old and new world examples in order to compare and contrast differencing experiences of colonialism. Overall, this session adds to our current understanding of how local communities resist and conform during times of conquest and serves as an analogy for modern interactions between dominant and subordinate ethnic groups.

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar una
panorámica general sobre la utilización del patrimonio
arqueológico romano como recurso
turístico en Portugal. Para conseguir este objetivo,
analizaremos los casos de los principales
yacimientos arqueológicos de esta cronología
abiertos al público. Unos lugares donde la investigación,
conservación y puesta en valor del
patrimonio romano, ha conseguido generar un
impacto económico y social.

The aim of this article is make a general vision
about the use of the roman archaeological heritage
how a touristic resource in Portugal. In
order to achieve this objective, we will analyses
the principal examples of roman sites open
to the public. A places where the research,
conservation and enhance Roman Heritage,
generated an impact economic and social.

Sample (first page) of an article published in: Cuadernos de Estudios Gallegos (Instituto de Estudios Gallegos Padre Sarmiento), 64/130 (2017), pp. 15-48. Please download here the complete file: http://estudiosgallegos.revistas.csic.es/index.php/estudiosgallegos/article/view/412/419

Language: Galician. Abstracts in Galician, Spanish and English

ABSTRACT: "Changes and continuIty of the municipium in late Roman Gallaecia (3rd-5th centuries)". This paper examines the evolution of local organizative framework of Gallaecia between the 3rd and 5th centuries, determining certain transformations of the municipium settled since the previous centuries and contextualizing them in the analogous evolution of the contemporary West. Finally it is stressed the apparent post-roman permanence of the basic structure of this organizative regime.

CONTENTS: Persistencia do municipium na Gallaecia baixo-imperial — O réxime municipal galaico-romano — Historiografía do municipium baixo-imperial: crise ou transformación? — Os comprometedores condicionantes estruturais — Fundus e patrocinium — Cargos imperiais no municipium: un curator en Asadur? — Implicación fiscal das curias: o moio de Ponte Puñide — O municipium sen o Estado: a irrupción bárbara — Liderados e representacións circunstanciais — As plebes galaicas na terminoloxía hidaciana — A ineludíbel remanencia estrutural do municipium — Conclusións.

The main goal of the present study is the analysis of a group of grey clay bowls imitating Italic Terra Sigillata and coming from the 2008-2013 excavation seasons in the site of Monte dos Castelinhos (Vila Franca de Xira – Portugal). The chronology attributed to these materials (early
1st century CE) is based on the recognition of a particular phase of the site (phase 4), currently under study.
The concept of “imitation” is particularly suitable and flexible to shed light on the productive and consumer logics at the heart of the spread of these materials in Monte dos Castelinhos as well as in other Portuguese sites. Their occurrence could be due to the change in the daily consumption of the local community at the turn of the current Era.

In the mid-18th century a farmer accidentally discovered, between Armês and Lameiras, Sintra – “Western zone” of the municipality of Olisipo – a roman stone with a double epitaph engraved in two text columns side by side. Of this finding, meanwhile lost again, we have only a transcription kept in the BibliotecaNacional de Lisboa (COD. 425 fl. 94), hand-written by an anonymous antiquarian who observed the monument in loco. He didn’t, however, realize the epigraph was distributed in two columns, and he transcribed the full lines from left to right not minding the separation between columns or even between lines. As a result, he left a chaotic and, at first sight, incomprehensible text. Hübner (in CIL II 265) attempted to reconstitute the original text but, having assumed that the first word, which he deemed an abbreviation, was common to both epitaphs, he took a complicated and equivocal line of thought that relied on the proposition of two pretenselypalaeohispanicanthroponyms completely unknown: *Alteciniris (gen.) e *Licassi (gen.); and also on an augustal status held by slaves. Due to the authority of the author of CIL II these anomalies were accepted by other investigators, some of high prestige, although others showed some dissent and skepticism. Returning to the original manuscript, we looked in it for clues that might allow, without preconceptions, to elaborate a new reconstitution of the original epigraph. The result is a normal text, devoid of irregularities or inconsistencies: nothing more than the parallel epitaphs of two slaves, AugustinusG(aii) Licini(i) Bassiser(vus) and Euticus L(ucii) Cassi(i) Alterisser(vus) – without any religious role but, solely, their identifying onomastic elements. Later, at the same archaeological site, a further inscription appeared that somehow helps to confirm our reconstitution: the funerary stele of [-] LiciniusBassus.