A bronze portrait of a slave child from a presumed villa near Medellín (Lusitania)

Abstract

A bronze portrait of a child (figs. 1-4) belonging to the category of “small format” portraits is preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Badajoz (inv. no. 4471). It was found in 1970 in excavations conducted by J. M. Peralta y Sosa on a farm in the Vega del Ortiga, an area east of Medellín in the territory between that town and Don Benito (Lusitania), some 35 km from Mérida (Augusta Emerita). In the excavated area of 40 m2 (fig. 5) were two cisterns and a rectangular well, at the bottom of which was the bronze portrait. The N cistern measured 3.8 x 1.25 m. Attached to its E side was a rectangular (80 x 60 cm) well. A channel in the centre of the S wall of the well was connected to a square (3.45 x 2.9 m) cistern. From its W wall a drain leads into a channel towards the Ortiga river, which flows by some 50 m away. On the E side of the excavation area were two identical column bases which could have belonged to a peristyle. One is a square (90 x 80 cm) block preserving traces of a column shaft 65 cm in diameter, while the other, 3 m to the north, retains the beginning of the shaft. From this point a wall (45 cm thick) faced with stucco starts to head north. The pottery found during the excavation included Arretine, South Gaulish and thin-walled wares belonging to the first quarter of the 1st c. A.D. The site appears to have been part of a Roman villa.