Lusitana Marmora in Roman Bética

Abstract

Towards the end of the 1970s, at the beginning of the line of research on marmora - understood as ornamental rocks in a broad sense - of historical archaeological interest in the Iberian Peninsula, several districts of Portuguese quarries are included in the listings of source areas exploited in Roman times. Over the last decades and with a renewed impetus in recent years, coinciding with the more frequent application of archaeometric methods of analysis that allow greater identification of the provenances of the archaeological materials analyzed, various aspects of the distribution and use of the marmora lusitana in different contexts of Hispanic geography. The bibliography of reference of the last decades has promoted the impression of the habitual presence of the marmora lusitana in the Betic and the diffusion of a series of proposals on the mechanisms of distribution and the patterns of use of these materials in our area of study. The detailed review of the available empirical basis, however, makes it necessary to highlight the very low number of individual identifications documented and the imprecision of the previous proposals of historical reconstruction of the patterns of distribution and use of the marmora lusitana in the provincia Baetica. The review and new analyzes of marble materials from Lusitanian origin documented in the present Occidental Andalusia show the presence of marble from the Anticlinal of Estremoz (Évora District), from the fossiliferous limestone of Sintra (Lisbon District) and, to a lesser extent , Of marbles of Trigaches (District of Beja) and Viana of Alentejo (District of Évora). The analysis of the archaeological information associated to these materials allows to deepen in the historical reconstruction of the commercial circuits between the Roman Lusitania and the Western Bética. The progress in the analytical identification of the different Portuguese marmora makes it possible, in particular, to confirm the supraregional importance of these materials, but also to emphasize the future analysis needs of their distribution mechanisms and their use patterns, which we illustrate in this work Through a series of recent archaeometric case studies.