Topography, Monumentalization and Funerary Customs in Urban Necropoleis in Baetica

Topography, monumentalization and funerary
customs in urban necropoleis in Baetica

Desiderio Vaquerizo
‘Inebriated, like a butterfly’ (CIL II2/7, 575, fig. 1)1
Mors mala solvit …
When faced with death, Romans were always con-
cerned about the visible effect of their passage through
this world and to end their days with the minimum
of dignity. This concern regarding the moral sta-
tus of one’s acts, the approval of one’s behaviour by
others (including family) and the virtues displayed
during one’s lifetime2 is seen in several Hispanic car-
mina epigraphica praising the merits of the deceased;
some epitaphs even include among the virtues of the
deceased that they almost established blood links
with their peers.3 It was a common ambition to die
in the arms of one’s beloved; this is reflected in a car-
men sepulcralis at Astigi (1st c. A.D.) in which a widow
laments that although his early death had made this
impossible, she had scrupulously observed the duty
of pietas by providing a worthy tomb for him and
wishing him eternal rest.4
Romans were also anxious to have access to a mini-
mum of funeral rites necessary to make their passage
from this world to the next less traumatic, as well as Fig. 1. CIL II2/7, 575: carmen sepul-
to a tomb in which their remains could be lain to eter- cralis (Corduba). Libation with wine on
nal rest (whether or not they believed that a further the cremated remains is mentioned as a
life actually existed). If possible, the tomb should be of way of guaranteeing both survival and
monumental proportions and with an epitaph carved remembrance. End of 1st to first half of
2nd c. A.D.
on a solid support to perpetuate their name for ever.5
This explains why certain Hispanic inscriptions reflect frustration on the part of the liv-
ing for not having been able to erect a monument (cella memoriae6) worthy of their loved
ones or to inscribe their tituli sepulcrales in litterae aureae,7 a cruel metaphor for the clash
1 This is a loose translation of a carmen sepulcralis. The complete verse runs: d]esiero volitet meus
eb[rius] / [papilio ossa tegant....
2 Paupertas, amicitia, pietas, fortitudo, honestas, pulchritudo …, in the case of men; obsequium, pietas,
castitas, pudor, pudicitia, sedulitas, univira …, in the case of women, documented by inscriptions
only in Baetica (Hernández Pérez 2001, 140 ff. and 155 ff., respectively; Fernández Martínez
2007, for Baetica).
3 CLE 1140 (Marchena, Seville, 1st c. A.D.); cf. Hernández Pérez 2001, 181.
4 CLE 1138, 2; cf. Hernández Pérez 2001, 24 ff.
5 See Jordan 2011 for a recent study of the rôle of the promoters and donors of tituli sepulcrales in
Hispania Citerior (with references to Baetica).
6 De Filippis 1997, 110 ff.
7 CILA II, 175 (Celti, second half of 2nd c. A.D.); cf. Hernández Pérez 2001, 184 ff.; Fernández
© Journal of Roman Archaeology 26 (2013)
210 D. Vaquerizo
between reality and desire. References to

destiny, which justify the universal and ines-
capable character of death, are frequently
used in funerary inscriptions in seeking con-
solation. Occasionally unpleasant allusions
to it are present, as when the deceased is
cursed or others are invited to do so.8 Allu-
sions to the impossibility of avoiding what
is preordained are often placed in the mouth
of the deceased himself, exhorting relatives
to cease their laments, which are futile. This
is reflected in two fragmentary metrical
inscriptions (2nd c. A.D.) from Baetica, both
dedicated to immaturae, who died at 16 and
18 years of age.9 In the first, from Urso (CIL
II2/5, 1057), which belongs to a tradition of
culture, the stereotypical formula reveals
that the deceased is blaming his death on
destiny and begging his father to cease
grieving.10 The second, from Corduba (CIL
II2/7, 567), reflects a more popular formula;
it can be reconstructed easily because of the
cliché present in the final lines in which the
young woman begs her mother to cease her
Fig. 2. CIL II2/7, 567: carmen sepulcralis (Corduba),
suffering, while attributing her own death
emphasizing the power of destiny and how perish-
able is human nature. End of 2nd c. A.D. to destiny, and compares perishable human
nature with fruit on the trees (fig. 2).11
Funerary epigraphy12 often compares death with the end of all evil (finis laborum; mors
mala solvit), a rest that the gods sometimes afford as a gift to the most virtuous for their pie-
tas. This exercise of consolatio usually implies the negation of any kind of belief in a world
beyond the grave.13 Certain Hispanic inscriptions of Epicurean inspiration describe death
as a state of unconsciousness comparable to a void:14 the deceased simply boasts of having
lived and having enjoyed all pleasures. Yet despite this relative nihilism, there is a continu-
ing eagerness to reproduce the form of a house in their tombs and funerary containers,15
an interest in decorating the interior of monumental tombs as if it were the habitat enjoyed
Martínez 2007, cat. no. Seville-10, 345-48.

8 CLE 445: … casum quisque legat, fato maledicat iniquo (Corduba, second half of 2nd to start of 3rd
c. A.D.); cf. Hernández Pérez 2001, 262-63.
9 On immaturi and some of the peculiarities in ritual, see Vaquerizo 2004, 2009 and 2010a.
10 ... rapta ego sum fato … / desine flere, par[ens] … (CIL II2/5, 1057).
11 … e noli dol[ere, mate]r: moriendum fuit / si[cut in arbore pom]a, sic et corpora nostra: / [aut matu]ra
cadunt aut nimis [acerbar]uunt) (Hernández Pérez 2001, 84 ff.).
12 Including examples from Baetica: CIL II2/5, 1260 (Astigi) or CLE 541 (Ilipa).
13 Hernández Pérez 2001, 95 ff.
14 CIL II 434: ... nil fui, nil sum (Tolox, Málaga, 2nd c. A.D.); CIL II2/7, 869: … non fui, fui, non sum,
fui (ager Mirobrigensis, 1st c. A.D.).
15 Bendala 1996, 60; Zanker 2002, 62; Rodríguez Oliva 2002.
Topography, monumentalization and funerary customs in urban Baetica 211
while one was on earth, or the wish to bury the dead in the ground beneath their own
dwellings. In certain Hispanic epitaphs (e.g., CIL II 6435) the tomb is classified as an aeterna
domus. This follows a custom documented in other parts of the empire, the occupants being
convinced that they would live on in them for ever, as if they did not actually believe in
an afterworld. Yet, as with other paradoxes apparent in Roman culture, Romans seem to
have felt no difficulty with respect to the co-existence of both ideas. This does not mean
that there could not be a reaction of incredulity caused by the sorrow and despair when
one was faced with the death of particularly beloved ones,16 as is well seen in a carmen
sepulcralis of the end of 1st c. A.D. from Gades regarding a brother and sister who both died
in a short space of time: the text compares the pain felt by their parents to that caused by a
physical wound at the same time that it records with bitterness and despair how death has
reduced to ashes what was once, in the case of the girl, a beautiful creature.17 All of these
ideas explain the importance of the burial, grave goods18 and periodic offerings19 for both
the deceased and for the dii inferi.20
Archaeological reality: hybridism?

Our knowledge of necropoleis in Baetica is affected by a number of different factors,
including topography (when excavated in rock, burials are more likely to be preserved),
the historical evolution of the cemeteries, and the history of urban development in the area,
especially in view of recent excavations prompted by the recent property boom. Hispano-
Romans, like the rest of the inhabitants of the empire, made their funerary spaces an essen-
tial element of their notion of an urban area or civitas, a reflection of their evolution as
humans, and a window opening onto their accomplishments or miseries, their ostentation
and vanities, or their dreads, pain, absence, their fear of oblivion and longing for remem-
brance. Nevertheless, their tombs contain a number of distinguishing elements, depending
often on the existence of a local tradition, in which an important rôle is played by the idio-
syncrasies of the pre-Roman population and by the particular contributions made by the
settlers who came with the conquest. In the S part of the peninsula the Punic component21
would have influenced (and been influenced by) the pre-Roman population, to the point
where they had almost merged into a single hybrid whole,22 which makes it even more dif-
ficult, if not impossible, for us to isolate different influences.23 This is seen in cities such as
16 Which sometimes death finally united, when they were buried together. In this way, merging
into one, the love or affection between them became eternal: sodalis amor, rapuisti me; nunc sumus
una. Dum viximus semper concordes, nunc sumus certe pares (Alcañiz, Zaragoza, first half of 1st c.
A.D.; cf. Hernández Pérez 2001, 130 ff.). See also some instances from Baetica: CIL II2/7, 498 (Cor-
duba); CIL II 1222 = CILA II 58 (Hispalis).
17 CLE 1158: ... tristior ecce dies renovat mala volnera sana ... et modo queae fuerat filia, nunc cinis est; cf.
Hernández Pérez 2001, 51 ff. and 73 ff.
18 Grave goods, together with the type of burial, are often one of the key cultural, chronological
and ideological indicators, but I agree with A. Jiménez Díez (2006, 90) when she states that one
can only speak of ‘tendencies’ and not rigid rules in this respect.
19 Prieur 1991, 143.
20 Tirelli 2001, 252-53, fig. 8.
21 Vaquerizo 2006, 2008a and 2010a.
22 Moving from “menestra” (mixed vegetables) to “crema de verduras” (vegetable soup), with all
the shades of integration that it implies, to quote a metaphor of M. Bendala (2006a).
23 On the rôle of the Punic inhabitants of the Iberian peninsula, see Ferrer and Álvarez 2009, with
bibliography. On hybridism in indigenous Hispanic communities, see especially Jiménez Díez
212 D. Vaquerizo
Fig. 3a-b. Corduba, N necropolis: funerary monu-

ment in C/ La Bodega. Note the sealing with ashlars,
as in other similar tombs in the city which were per-
haps produced by the same workshop (A. B. Ruiz;
elevation J. L. Vaquerizo).
Baelo Claudia, Carissa Aurelia, Onuba, Carmo, Corduba, Hispalis and Malaca, several of which
had their own mint striking coins on their own metrological standard, iconography, and
even the Punic-Turdetanian alphabet,24 leaving little doubt at all as to the basic ethno-
graphic character of the population (or at least of part of it).
This kind of hybridism is present in funerary manifestations in many Baetican cities, and
it survived until the empire was well advanced. The epigraphy itself preserves little sign
of this; more often it is revealed by more subtle aspects (hypogeum chambers, the sealing of
tombs with large stones [fig. 3a-b], ollae ossuariae of an indigenous or Punic tradition; grave
goods that do not include terra sigillata or other Italic materials, and so on). In other cases
the hybridism is more explicit, as in the case of a gold earring in the shape of a half-moon
with a depiction of Tanit, recovered among the grave goods in a tomb at Orippo (Dos Her-
manas, Seville), dated supposedly to the
2nd c. A.D.25 (figs. 4a-b). In the same vein
the simultaneous use of cremation and
inhumation, visible in most of the urban
cemeteries that we have reviewed even as
far back as the 2nd c. B.C., is remarkable.
This was undoubtedly prompted not only
by the arrival of peoples from the centre or
south of Italy, who had practised inhuma-
tion for centuries and brought with them
Fig. 4. Orippo (Dos Hermanas, Sevilla): earring with
their own funerary customs,26 but also by
engraving depicting Tanit (P. Quesada/Archaeological
Museum, Seville). indigenous funerary practices which had
a certain Semitic component (see below).
(2006, 2007 and 2008) and M. Bendala (2006a-b).

24 García-Bellido and Blázquez 2001.
25 Martín Ripoll and Martínez 1995, 688 ff.; Martínez Peñarroya 1997.
26 Vaquerizo 2007.
Fig. 5. Carmona, W necropolis: funerary monuments in a circular formation close by the N side of a secondary
thoroughfare leading to Hispalis (SICAC).
One of the most studied cities in recent years is Baelo Claudia,27 as scholars wrestle
with the proper cultural definition of its funerary remains and their implications for the
rest of Baetica.28 This discussion goes back to the work of R. Thouvenot in 1940 and the
extent to which the intense Latinization of Baetica (striking even for contemporary Roman
authors) was compatible with the survival of indigenous characteristics.29 Stated another
way, it concerns whether certain features detected in the funerary sphere should be con-
sidered to carry ethnic values and may legitimately be read as a conscious vindication
27 Also Carmo, where new investigations are bringing to light a good number of unpublished
tombs among those excavated at the end of 19th and start of the 20th c., with many others still to
be excavated (Ruiz Cecilia et al. 2011; Rodríguez Temiño et al. 2012). This shows that the funer-
ary landscape of the W necropolis at Carmona was much denser and more varied than previ-
ously reported, organized according to viae sepulcrales (basically the via Augusta and another
secondary road that goes directly to Hispalis), opening onto which, creating a façade, are the
most monumental tombs. The funerary topography is structured according to precincts and
enclosures of between 100 and 200 square feet that coincide with the spaces occupied by the
hypogea and adapt themselves to the various arterial roads and to the hilly terrain while leaving
spaces for people to pass between the tombs (figs. 5-6 here). In the opinion of those studying it,
even though the necropolis offers unquestionable Punic nuances that are still comprehensible
within the framework of what we call Romanization, the architectural forms and the ritual cor-
respond in general to Italic influences. Thus the debate continues.
28 García Jiménez 2008; Jiménez Díez 2008; Vaquerizo 2006, 2008a and 2010a; Prados and García
2010; Prados 2011; Prados et al. 2012; Izquierdo-Egea 2012.
29 Thouvenot 1940, 569.
214 D. Vaquerizo
Fig. 6. Carmona, W necropolis:

a) funerary enclosures by the Tomb of Postumio;
b) funerary sites in the sector of the Tomb of Four Columns (SICAC).
Fig. 7. Baelo Claudia: aerial view with archaeological sites and complexes indicated (courtesy F. Prados).
of identity. Several scholars under the direction of F. Prados are immersed in a research
project to throw more light on the E necropolis at Baelo.30 This has led to the excavation (or
re-excavation) of certain zones and structures, in an effort to give a voice to the indigenous
(Bastuli-Punic) inhabitants after they had been transferred to the new city, founded on the
site of an earlier fish-salting factory, from the oppidum known as Silla del Papa (= Bailo?)
and its other subsidiary settlements in the time of Augustus31 (fig. 7). For them the Punic
tradition is evident in the funerary topography (dispersed tombs, not organized spatially
by viae sepulcrales), the typology of the tombs (turriform monuments, double precincts,
cupae), and in ritual and grave goods including muñecos (dolls), the worship of a divinity
of beyond the grave or “of a liminal nature” who is possibly Baal-Saturn (from whom may
derive the name of the city). These aspects were combined in the tombs along the road
from Carteia, which will allow the funerary sectors to be identified by their ethnic affilia-
tion, which remained evident at least until the first decades of the 2nd c. A.D. This takes
us away from a post-colonialist interpretation to see necropoleis as ideal places that reflect
“conciencias contradictorias” and perhaps also a “resistencia pasiva”, both requiring a full
explanation.32 My own views33 have been qualified or contradicted in many ways, prob-
ably rightly so, and it is best to wait for the results of this new research to be published
before we make further statements.
30 Prados 2011, 201: “… a mixture of African, Punic, Mauretanian, Hispanic and Italic elements,
with a hybrid substratum easy to recognize though difficult to classify”; ibid. 204: “ … a hybrid
city in a geographical context that is open, a commercial port, straddling two oceans and two
continents”. The necropolis occupies an area of over 7 ha: Prados and García 2010, 6.
31 Prados et al. 2012.
32 Prados 2011.
33 Vaquerizo 2006, 2008a, 2010, 172 ff., and 2012b.
216 D. Vaquerizo
Topographic issues
In Roman towns the pomerium at the outset became a prophylactic and liminal space to
separate the living from the world of death, peopled with tombs, crematoria and puticuli.34
Yet the suburbium, the focus of much recent work,35 should be understood as an area com-
pletely integrated into a town’s daily life, with its paths for pedestrians and lanes for
traffic, aqueducts, buildings for entertainments (spectacles), domus for relaxation, orchards
and gardens, and a great variety of artisanal activities, not to mention rubbish and dung
heaps. Corduba36 and Carmo,37 like so many other cities in Baetica, have been shown to be
paradigmatic in this respect. Another issue is whether the pomerium coincides or not with
the city walls. At Munigua, it must have enclosed a much smaller space since its necropo-
leis occupy plots of land that are clearly intramural.38 At Urso too, the line of the walls does
not coincide with the pomerium, which was undoubtedly much larger, perhaps because the
pre-Roman limit was respected when the ritual furrow delimiting the new urban space was
ploughed at a certain distance from the former.39 Meanwhile, children who died during
the first 40 days of life were still being buried inside dwellings,40 as they could not yet be
considered social persons governed by the ius pontificium. The tendency to carry on bury-
ing within the family circle or, at any event, within the walled enclosure continued for a
long time on an occasional and surreptitious basis, especially when the deceased were chil-
dren. This made it necessary to issue new regulations from time to time to remind people
of the ancient law prohibiting the deposition of corpses intra pomerium.41 This occurs, for
example, in the Lex Ursonensis (§73-74), which reflects the provisions of the Twelve Tables
by prohibiting the burning or burying of any deceased inside ancient Osuna, prohibits the
building of new ustrina (but existing private ones may well have been respected) at less
than 500 paces from the walls, and establishes penalties for offences (fines, even demoli-
tion) and the religious consequences (the need for atonement).42 At the end of Roman rule
when cities were in crisis or their ideological structures had changed, burials not surpris-
ingly were reinstated within the walls, taking over urban sectors.43 An important rôle in
this was played by the expansion of Christianity: for devotees of the new faith, tumulatio ad
sanctos or ad martyres was made a privilege, namely, the possibility of being buried close to
relics in one of the centres of worship whether inside the city or extra-urban.44
34 Varro, LL 5.25. Pérez Maestro 2007.

35 Annibaletto 2010; Vaquerizo 2010b and 2012a; Garriguet 2010; Liverani 2012.
36 See the studies included in Vaquerizo 2012a.
37 Amores 2001.
38 Schattner 2003.
39 Pachón and Ruiz 2006.
40 In the late 5th c. A.D. Fulgentius (Expos. serm. ant. 7) must have been referring to this practice
when he mentioned that children under 40 days of age were buried subgrundaria (beneath the
eaves of the roof). Cf. Baills-Talbi and Dasen 2008, 600. Interpreting it literally, some scholars
(e.g., López Melero 1997, 113) consider that these burials would have occurred under the roof or
directly within the walls, to prevent the corpses from coming into direct contact with the earth,
which in this way could become a locus religiosus. But it seems likely that at least sometimes bur-
ials took place next to the wall foundations, protected by these eaves, as seems to have occurred
with child inhumations beneath the horreum of San Blas at Carmona (Román 2001; Anglada and
Román 2001). The same had happened earlier at Rome itself: Filippi 2008.
41 Libitina e dintorni 2004.
42 López Melero 1997, 106.
43 See further the studies in Bartoloni and Benedettini 2008.
44 Beltrán Heredia 2008.
As in the rest of the empire, burial in the cities of Baetica always sought the main thor-
oughfares entering or leaving the urban nucleus. In some cases authentic viae sepulcrales
were created, as at Corduba, Carmo, Urso, Gades, Carissa Aurelia or Baelo Claudia where they
reached a certain degree of monumentality, even if their patterns of distribution and the
nuances of their morphology differed; but even in these cases, tombs only managed to
create a continuous frontage for short stretches, while closest to the walls or in areas val-
ued for their proximity to crossroads or well-frequented spots they often stood side by
side with all kinds of manufacturing installations. They might also stand next to suburban
villas, whose decorative and kitchen gardens would eventually merge with cepotaphia, evi-
dently present in quite high numbers (e.g., in the necropoleis at Hispalis45). There are only
a few exceptions, such as the E necropolis at Baelo Claudia, the W one at Carmo or the N one
at Carissa Aurelia, that break this rule and are not by the main thoroughfare (the latter two
because they were almost entirely dug into the rock, the former because of its reduced size
and proximity to the industrial zone with the fish-salting factory46). The attraction exer-
cised by thoroughfares is particularly evident in the case of the via Augusta: as shown by
F. Amores (2001) in the case of Carmona, the most conspicuous tombs and denser topogra-
phy were clustered where it passed by. These principles are also exemplified at Cordoba,
the caput provinciae,47 where the most important necropoleis from a monumental and
chronological point of view (the W, N and E necropoleis) concentrated like blood vessels
around the busiest roads: that to Hispalis which also gave access to the amphitheatre,48
important for ceremonies which would travel along its first stretch after leaving the urban
centre through the West Gate; the road to Emerita, capital of Lusitania, and to the min-
ing areas to the north; and the via Augusta entering Corduba from the east after providing
visitors with an impressive vision of what the capital represented in both urban and ideo-
logical terms49 (figs. 8a-b). To judge by the funerary inscriptions for slaves or freedmen,
several of these spaces would have been chosen for family tombs by some of the most
important families, as is the case of the Annaei and Fannii in the N necropolis or the Calpur-
nii and Marii in the E necropolis.50
Funerary topography was very important to the conception of cities in Baetica. The
inhabitants, following the example of Rome, found that the funus publicum and laudatio
45 The necropoleis at Seville have recently been the objective of a first in-depth analysis (González
Acuña 2011, 495 ff.), confirming certain aspects of my own work (2010a, 223 ff.) — such as our
scant knowledge of the pre-Imperial funerary world, the guiding rôle played by streets, the
intense juxtaposition outside the city walls of tombs with artisanal and industrial activities, or
the process of Christianization of the funerary landscape — while adding some new elements
— e.g., a limestone funerary relief with a depiction of Medusa, re-used in late antiquity, which
seems to confirm the existence between the 1st and 2nd c. A.D. of funerary monuments of great
size, perhaps of the aedicula type (González Acuña 2011, 514, fig. 24), or the taking over of the S
and NW necropoleis for residential and industrial purposes at the end of the 1st and well into
2nd c., respectively.
46 Vaquerizo 2010a, 172 ff., with bibliography.
47 Ruiz Osuna 2010.
48 Vaquerizo and Murillo 2010; Vaquerizo 2012a.
49 Vaquerizo 2012a. It is strange that the latter thoroughfare, after crossing the bridge in the direc-
tion of Gades, did not serve the same purpose in what we call the S necropolis, since here only a
few dispersed and mostly late tombs have been discovered.
50 Ruiz Osuna 2006, 177.
218 D. Vaquerizo
Fig. 8. Corduba, E
suburb: above) pano-
rama of thoroughfare,
circus and provincial
cult complex (copy-
right Convenio GMU-
UCO); below) graphic
anastylosis of the
same sector (Schattner
and Ruipérez 2010,
fig. 6).
funebris51 efficiently honoured their most relevant

citizens;52 at the same time, they reserved for them
a prominent position in the necropoleis.53 In this
51 Melchor 2008.
52 We do know of some women who as the head of
or by ensuring the continuation of certain lineages
received funerary honours, including laudationes:
CIL II2/7, 297 and 800; CIL II 1089 and 5049; HEp 4,
1994, 262 (cf. Melchor 2006b, 123; id. 2009a). Also
some youths were accorded these honours as a
way of recognising the merits of their family (fig.
9).
53 At Cordoba, 33% of the tituli sepulcrales that tes-
tify to funerary honours have been recovered in a
Fig. 9. CIL II2/7, 306: pedestal of statue of a young honor-
ary decurion, honoured in the caput provinciae by the colonia
Augusta Firma Astigi. End of 2nd c. A.D.
way they left an explicit record of collective gratitude to the families while at the same
time recognizing their nobilitas, rooted to a great extent in the merits and lineage of their
illustrious forebears and gens. They turned burials into a public demonstration of mourn-
ing and self-presentation as a group; this was then reinforced by putting up statues of the
deceased, guaranteeing that most appreciated but unpredictable objective, remembrance.54
The epigraphic reflection of this custom55 has become the chief means for identifying the
urban aristocracy, which often wielded power and magistracies for generations locally,
and sometimes also at the provincial level.56 Not all showed themselves worthy of the
same privileges; on the contrary, major differences exist in the criteria applied, perhaps
related to their euergetic activity, the public posts held, or their genealogy,57 so the range
of variations is very wide.58
While these types of honours are also found in the cities of prime importance, such as
Corduba, in Baetica some 50 epigraphic instances are known, as against 9 in Tarraconensis
and 4 in Lusitania, which gives an idea of the idiosyncrasies of the three provinces.59 These
epigraphic practices are also characteristic of cities of secondary importance, whose local
élites and aristocracies must have found in them an effective and visible way of declar-
ing their adherence to the Roman cause and of maintaining their prestige, leadership and
appearance of being true Romans.60
Ritual
In Rome the simultaneous use of burial and cremation, and more specifically the wide-
spread substitution of cremation by inhumation from the mid-Imperial period, have given
rise to all kinds of debates.61 Not only Cicero (De leg. II.22.56) but also Pliny (NH 7.187)
state that the oldest practise in Rome was inhumation, but the fact is that in the necropolis
in the Forum, dated roughly between the 8th and 6th c. B.C., both rites are documented,
while from the Twelve Tables (Cic., De Leg. II.23.58) it can also be deduced that cremation
was frequent in Rome of the 5th c. B.C. This co-existence would continue in a natural way
until Imperial times without there seeming to exist a fixed rule on the part of different
people62 unless it be family consuetudo, cultural influence or personal choice, which was
specific sector of the N necropolis, divided into plots at the will of the owner and possibly dedi-
cated to guaranteeing the “collective civic memory” (Melchor 2006b, 116 ff. with the Table on
137 ff.; Ruiz Osuna 2010).
54 López López 1998; Baena 1996 and 2000; Arce 2000; Garriguet 2006; Melchor 2006a-b, 2007 and
2009a-b; Marcks 2008; Ortiz de Urbina 2009.
55 In many cases these are the only archaeological evidence for these funerary portraits.
56 For example, C. Sempronius Speratus, flamen provinciae Baeticae (CIL II2/7, 799), who at the end of
the 1st c. A.D. received the greatest honours from the ordo decurionum of Mellaria (Fuente Obe-
juna, Cordoba), which included two equestrian statues, all financed by his wife: Melchor 2006b,
no. 12.
57 Melchor 2006b, 136.
58 See in this respect Vaquerizo 2010a, 43.
59 Garriguet 2006, 198 ff.
60 Melchor 2006b, Table at 137 ff.
61 Faber et al. 2007, with bibliography.
62 Toynbee 1993, 24 ff. Tacitus (Ann. 16.6; Germ. 27) defends the cremation of corpses as a strictly
Roman custom, but perhaps we should recall that for Romans the funus as a whole was more
important than how the body in a strict sense was dealt with: Taglietti 2001, 158.
220 D. Vaquerizo
often directly linked to the region from which they originated.63 This explains the fact that
hybridism is repeated from the very beginning in the earliest and most intensely Roman-
ized provinces, to which it was imported by Italic colonists and the army.64
Inhumations are known in Hispania from at least the 2nd c. B.C., whilst cremations, at the
beginning collected and quite frequently placed in ollae ossuariae of a local type, generally
continue well into the 3rd c. A.D. It has long been customary to document some inhuma-
tions in areas and even within tombs where cremation was predominant, but it is very
rare when we have sufficient information to be able to state categorically their simultane-
ous existence. Contrary to what has been the traditional view, new findings now provide
conclusive data for occasional use of the rite of inhumation co-existing naturally and from
the very beginning with cremation, both in rural and in urban environments.65 On the
other hand, the triumph of inhumation coincides chronologically with the important new
practice of using sarcophagi made of lead, smooth stone or marble, and decorated with
pagan themes (in many cases, mythological scenes chosen by those who were commis-
sioning them, with a metaphorical goal of stimulating particular sentiments66) or, a little
later, themes taken from the Old and New Testaments that respond to social values, rather
than exalting the individual. Many sarcophagi are scattered throughout Baetica,67 although
undoubtedly it was the provincial capital that amassed the most conspicuous and numer-
ous examples.
As in many other places in the empire, especially in the West, the choice of cremation
or inhumation by the people of Baetica responded to quite diverse reasons. Among those,
an important rôle was played by the decision taken by the family or individual responsible
that related to cultural tradition or place of origin. This explains the random distribution
of both inhumation and cremation in funerary zones, the more or less standardized con-
struction of family tombs that were conceived architecturally and designed specifically
for the double rite, or the use of the same grave goods elements quite independent of the
treatment eventually applied to the corpse.68 We should recall here the importance of the
Greek demographic component, not only with respect to where the settlers came from —
Etruria, Magna Graecia, and other areas of Italy, where burial was the predominant rite or
co-existed with the use of fire for cremation — but also because certain rites (or, rather, par-
ticular ways of understanding certain rites) could go back to the Greeks.69 Petronius (Sat.
63 Ortalli 2007, 203.

64 Vaquerizo 2007; 2010a, 282 ff., fig. 264.
65 E.g., at Acinipo, Antikaria, Baelo Claudia, Acinipo, Astigi, Carmo, Corduba, Gades, Malaca, Munigua,
Onuba, Orippo, Singilia Barba, and Urso: see Vaquerizo 2007a-b; 2010a, 282 ff., fig. 264.
66 The same tendency can be seen in inscriptions when laudatory labels are assigned to the
deceased: Zanker 2002, 63.
67 I will not treat this topic since there are several recent studies: Beltrán Fortes 1999; id. 2007a,
234 ff.; Rodríguez Oliva 2002, 285 ff.; Beltrán Fortes, García and Rodríguez 2006, 62 ff. with figs.
30-41, and 124 ff., nos. 9-48 with pls. 14-56.
68 What is true, in any case, is that funerary deposits, which are more or less rich in cremations
and inhumations of the first imperial centuries, became fewer and fewer to the point of being
almost non-existent from the 3rd c. A.D., when they were reduced to the occasional unguen-
tarium, one or more lamps, and sporadic elements of personal adornment (e.g., acus crinales).
Later, pottery containers prevail, the study of which goes beyond the objectives of the present
article: cf. Carmona Berenguer 1997; Vizcaíno and Madrid 2006; Madrid and Vizcaíno 2007.
69 This is so in Valentia, where burials contemporary with the founding of the city (in 138 B.C.)
have been attributed to settlers from Italy and Magna Graecia: Garcia Prosper, Guérin and
111) defines burial in hypogea as Graeco more, and some of the oldest burials, particularly
at Corduba, appear in relation to Greek names (regardless of whether we indiscriminately
consider names to be indicative of an origo or not). Thus cremation and burial could also be
used as elements to define social, economic and even religious status.70
From the outset and through history the position of the body generally preferred at
Rome was the supine one, which can be identified with sleep in that a close affinity exists
between Hypnos and Thanatos from birth.71 In this sense we can perhaps interpret the
frequent allusion on tituli sepulcrales72 to death as rest, although in many there is the under-
lying consolatio, with death taken to mean the end of all ills; in this the peace of the deceased
is contrasted with the grief of the relatives, which it attempts to mitigate. In certain funer-
ary texts in Spain it is quite common to find allusions to funerary monuments as providing
consolation for the living and homage to the deceased. The tomb is turned into a conclu-
sive testimony to their memory, thereby emphasizing the need to respect it. We see this
at Corduba (CIL II2/7, 569) and at Astigi (CIL II2/5, 1227) in the 2nd c. A.D. Still, the supine
position was not the only one used in Baetica. Recent excavations have irrefutably shown
that there were corpses buried in a prone position and others on their side; the latter, which
had been documented only occasionally and for infants, now appears more frequent also
for adults, both male and female, laid in tombs apparently without discrimination on their
right or their left side;73 until recently, excavators were influenced by the general belief that
burials placed on their sides belong to the Islamic era and so hesitated to attribute them to
the Roman. As anomalous burials, those laid prone are now giving rise to a whole series
of ritual and eschatological questions.74 There is now agreement that we cannot consider
this a random practice given the degree of standardization of burial at Rome, despite the
wide range of variations and the heterogeneity which is becoming more and more evident.
Written sources mention specific rituals designed to dispel the potential danger presented
by certain types of deceased individuals;75 there are also defixiones on which the name of
the victim is written upside down to favour (also, to represent) his death.76 The most gen-
erally accepted interpretation of such prone burials is of ‘ostracized’ or, at least, singular
individuals who were buried in different zones or in rituals that negatively differenti-
ated them in death from their relatives or contemporaries. Such individuals might include
criminals, those who committed suicide, the disabled, those who had been executed,77
Martí 1999; Polo and García Prosper 2002, 138.

70 A double inscription at Isola Sacra (Portus), placed both on the façade of the cella and that of the
funerary enclosure, specifically prohibits the placing of sarcophagi inside the tomb, which was
conceived solely for cremation burials, showing an explicit preference for this rite. See Taglietti
2001, 153, fig. 5; Tumba 87.
71 Habes somnum imaginem mortis eamque cotidie induis, wrote Cicero, adding that this was the way
of thinking by those who did not fear death: see De Filippis 1997, 34.
72 E.g., CLE 541: … hic ego sepultus iaceo placidusque quiosco ... (Ilipa, 2nd-3rd c. A.D.); cf. Hernández
Pérez 2001, 102-3.
73 This has been noted in necropoleis at Astigi, Canama, Carissa Aurelia, Carmo, Corduba, Gades,
Malaca, Onuba and Singilia Barba: Vaquerizo 2010a, fig. 265.
74 Ferrer, Lozano and Mazuelos 2009; Vaquerizo 2009; id. 2010a, 305 ff.; id. 2011, 210 ff.; Belcastro
and Ortalli 2010, all with earlier bibliography.
75 For a detailed analysis, see Alfayé 2009, 190 ff.
76 Marco Simón 2011, 180.
77 As a rule, put to the sword or beheaded, but one cannot discount other kinds of traumatic
death, such as suffocation. For some, death by hanging has been suggested (Blanco, Fuste and
222 D. Vaquerizo
victims of infectious diseases (indigni morbi, such as leprosy, tuberculosis, dementia, rabies
or porphyries), those who had carried out activities considered ignominious (e.g., grave-
diggers, sorcerers, magicians, actors), or simply those who experienced premature death,
being forgotten by the gods and posing a potential threat (as larvae, lemurae, umbrae) to
their contemporaries, especially those closest to them. Their ‘threatening’ state would thus
derive as much from what they were and how they behaved in life as from the particu-
lar circumstances of their death.78 Certain scholars believe that these burials in the prone
position were simply intended to make it easier for the deceased to return to the earth, but
it would not be prudent to discard other, more complex reasons depending upon ritual,
family, social or ideological points of view. Basically, the interest on the part of the living
in holding the corpse fast in the tomb (burying it face down, quartered, mutilated, throw-
ing stones on top of it, or fastening it with nails or curses79) was because they were fearful
of him returning to this world in order to avenge the marginalization suffered, the circum-
stances of his death or its premature nature.80
Chapter 79 of the Lex Irnitana set aside a sum in the municipal budget for public surveil-
lance of funerary sites.81 This seems to show effective control by magistrates of everything
affecting necropoleis, including the integrity of the tombs and their boundaries (as loca
religiosa, tombs were part of the responsibility of the aediles), and, of course, their inviolabil-
ity.82 However, the circumstances must have been somewhat more complicated than what
is reflected in the regulations since, complementing the funerary regulations (which show
that they were breached more or less frequently) funerary fines were also established,
often quantified by the deceased himself in his will. The fines were generally higher than
the cost of the construction and had to be paid to the city or dedicated to specific purposes
explained in detail by the testator.83 These fines, as a general rule conceived as a warning,
to guarantee that the last wishes of the deceased were carried out, but also to prevent a
violatio sepulcri, were limited to the sphere of common or private rights and had no foun-
dation in legal regulation. They spread through the empire from the 2nd c. A.D. Not many
are known in the Roman West, with just two cases in Hispania: one in the heart of Baetica
(CIL II2/5, 236), the other in the capital of Lusitania.84 Both include the indicatio pedaturae
(the specific indication of the measurements of the locus sepulturae or monument), which
undoubtedly complicates matters, as some scholars have supposed that these sanctions
might have replaced the functions that the termini sepulcrorum had played up till then.85
García 1967, tomb 21, p. 16), although there is no certainty. The content of the Lex Libitinae Pute-
olana (Hinard and Dumont 2003) is interesting in this respect: it confirms that executions (cru-
cifixion, burning at the stake, flagellation) and the ensuing funerary rites should be funded
on behalf of the community by the same organization of libitinarii who held the monopoly for
funeral processions in the city: see Marco Simón 2011, 173 ff.
78 Alfayé 2009, 183 ff.
79 In Ps.-Quintilian’s Sepulchrum incantatum (“The tomb laid under a spell”) the ritual secured the
deceased to the tomb by means of chains, stones, iron and nails: cf. Alfayé 2009, 190 ff.
80 Baills-Talbi and Dasen 2008, 602 ff.
81 López Melero and Stylow 1995.
82 Mayer 2006, 228.
83 Toynbee 1993, 55 ff.; Mayer 2006, 215 ff.
84 Saquete 2002.
85 See an update on this problem in Vaquerizo and Sánchez 2008 and 2009.
Fig. 10. Carmona, W necropolis: tomb of the Funerary Banquet. Top: the board on which Rodríguez Jaldón
copied the watercolour of Bonsor. Below: sketch of the same item (both copyright Archivo del Conjunto
Arqueológico de Carmona).
Finally, we know that banquets were celebrated both during the ritual and afterwards,
as part of commemorative ceremonies in honour of the deceased, for which, in addition to
archaeology,86 epigraphy is the chief source: for example, the Medina Sidonia titulus that
demands flowers for the deceased,87 or the somewhat-less-clear fragmentary inscription
(CIL II2/7, 575) from Corduba in which the deceased establishes, with words written in the
form of a testamentary clause, that his heirs must make libations on his tomb.88 This is also
reflected in a metrical epigraph from Obulco, in which the deceased charges that his bones
be sprinkled with wine so that his soul, compared metaphorically with a butterfly (papilio),
a symbol of immortality, can flutter, inebriated, over them;89 the same formula is repeated
almost literally in the carmen in Corduba a century later (CIL II2/7, 575; cited at the head of
this article), which tends to confirm its popularity.
I shall not treat burials of the simplest type, noteworthy for their extraordinary variety;
cremations above all were carried out between the 1st and 2nd c. A.D., as is observed at
sites such as La Constancia in Cordoba, La Trinidad at Malaga; Puerta de Osario in Seville,
or the Canama necropolis at Alcolea del Río (Seville), where hardly any two burials are
the same.90 Because of their complexity and scope, they should be dealt with in a future
monograph.
86 Vaquerizo 2010a, 314 ff. Direct testimony is found in the triclinium tombs and the wall-
painting in the tomb of that name at Carmona dated to the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius:
Bendala 1996, 57, fig. 3; Guiral 2002, 83 ff., pl. I. See fig. 10 here.
87 See CIL II 5117: … semper et in flore sit tibi terra levis.
88 Hernández Pérez 2001, 263 ff.
89 CIL II2/7, 116 (Augustan period): heredibus mando etiam cinere ut m[eo vina subspargant … ut …
bolitet meus ebrius papillo, ipsa opsa tegant he[rbae…]. Cf. Fernández Martínez 2007, no. J15, 220-24.
90 Vaquerizo 2010a.
224 D. Vaquerizo
Key questions
Funerary reality in Baetica must have been quite complex as a result of the different
indigenous layers upon which the Roman settlers installed themselves (especially after the
deductiones of Caesar and Augustus and their respective policies of municipalization and
colonialization), the geographical origins and main social component of the settlers, the
networks and intensity of commercial and cultural exchanges, and the individual tastes
and traditions of the commissioners (whether conquerors or conquered), as well as pos-
sible co-existence and different degrees of (hybrid) relations between them. Perhaps this
explains the peculiarity of certain important urban areas such as Malaca, Acinipo, Astigi,
Hispalis and Italica, where the funerary zones have offered hardly any clear sign of monu-
mentality, even when in some cases the epigraphy leads us to assume that it existed. Other
less important cities, such as those on the Upper Guadalquivir91 or fairly close by, such as
Conobaria, on the other hand, offer a richer and more typical panorama, in which, while
being adapted to local tastes, workshops and materials, the grand funerary monuments,
including funerary portraits, played a rôle of the first order. In a third category, Carmo
or Carissa Aurelia present funerary landscapes characterized by many burials in hypogea,
formerly crowned with buildings or structures. Gades or Singilia Barba are remarkable
for a proliferation of hypogea or semi-hypogea always devoted to the rite of cremation. In
Munigua or Onuba certain funerary enclosures and monuments of some significance are
documented, and this leads us to include them within the general tendency.92
So far only Baelo Claudia93 and Corduba94 have provided necropoleis in which we can
trace the same processes detected in orthodox Roman cemeteries elsewhere in the empire,
with a clear evolution in terms of form and ritual down to the end of the empire.95 The
capital is particularly illustrative of this since recent work has revealed for the High Impe-
rial phases a dense topography involving extensive viae sepulcrales, riddled with tombs
and monuments of the most varied nature. They were intended to serve as a public “win-
dow” on and for society of the day which never lost sight of what was happening in Rome
itself, as ingenui and liberti competed in the location, form and materials of their tombs as
the ultimate way of expressing their social identity and wealth. As a result, it is difficult to
explain why cities relatively close to Corduba, as well as conventus-capitals such as Astigi or
Hispalis,96 managed not to succumb to the temptation of emulating, let alone compete with,
91 Where élites, foreigners or natives, enriched by mining activities, must have found in the funer-
ary realm a fine way of expressing their economic, social and cultural status — in other words,
their Romanness.
92 After many decades with little interest shown, following the recent urban excavations many
towns are now carrying out projects dedicated to analysing the cemeteries. Thus it is likely that
in the next few years much of the information described here will be qualified, corrected or sim-
ply expanded. As examples we mention Seville (González Acuña 2011) and Huelva (Campos
2009, 108 ff.), where this first approach will soon be completed by the doctoral thesis of L. Fer-
nández Sutilo.
93 Jiménez Díez 2008; García Jiménez 2008; Jorge Bonsor y la recuperación de Baelo 2009.
94 Ruiz Osuna 2010; Vaquerizo 2008a-b, 2010a and 2011.
95 Except to a certain degree for Baelo, Cordoba is the only Baetican city that documents a simi-
lar evolution over time with respect to rituals, topography, monumentality, statuary decora-
tion, materials, architectural forms, commemorative ceremonies and other varied expressions
of Rome’s funerary world. On this theme, see, e.g., Zanker 2002, especially 60 ff.
96 The fragment of a monumental altar documented recently in Hispalis (see above) could be proof
that much remains to be defined in the funerary world in these cities, subjected perhaps to
the striking funerary display that was so well suited to the personal interests of the differ-
ent social strata; the élites of those cities must have been very familiar with the displays if
they travelled fairly frequently to the provincial capital.
The monumentalization of necropoleis in Baetica (or at least in the most important
ones) is shown to have occurred from the mid-1st c. B.C. especially in the last quarter of
that century in connection with the start of the Augustan era and the processes of urban
embellishment, which became one of the main factors in the much-discussed and even
questioned process of Romanization. There seems now to be no doubt as to the existence
of an older and important monumental component in areas of different traditions, where
it is likely that Mediterranean, Hellenistic, Punic and Italic influences had merged early
on in varying degrees due to the presence both of
settlers of different origins and of the indigenous
aristocracies who were in the process of becom-
ing integrated into Roman culture. Here they
seem to have established patron-client relation-
ships of a more formal, subordinating kind, which
resulted in very ostentatious rituals (for example,
the funerals of the father and uncle of Publius Cor-
nelius Scipio [Livy 28.21; 29.1] or of Viriatus [Diod.
33.21], and monumental tombs whose ideologi-
cal patterns combined Hellenistic-derived cultural
markers with indigenous aesthetic codes. This was
the case at Osuna and Estepa, whose oldest funer-
ary reliefs (fig. 11) go back to the 2nd c. B.C.,97 and
is possibly the case with certain lions studied by
I. Pérez López (1999). The problem is that for now
none of the remains attributable to the first stages
of contact98 have been well excavated or contextual-
ized. Thus we are still unable to go into any detail
with respect to the location, topography, density or
ritual aspects of the first necropoleis, which have
often been covered over by successive enlarge-
ments of the towns themselves, destroyed over time, Fig. 11. Osuna: relief with musician, per-
haps from a funerary monument (National
or affected by other problems that prevent us from
Archaeological Museum, Madrid).
recognising them.
This almost complete absence of burials assignable, with any degree of certainty, to
the first two centuries of the Roman presence is apparent also in other towns in the penin-
sula, such as Tarraco,99 as well as in Italy (e.g., at Ostia, where necropoleis corresponding
completely different kinds of preservation, even if for the moment such evidence is rare.
97 See the latest collected bibliography: Pachón and Ruiz 2007; Vaquerizo 2010a, 92 ff.
98 We recall the unresolved debate about an alleged funerary ritual, of Atlantic origin, that has left
no archaeological trace. According to some scholars this ritual prevailed in the southeast of the
peninsula up until the introduction of the more typically Roman funus of Mediterranean inspi-
ration (Ruiz Gálvez 1995; Escacena 2000). These practices would have been set aside during
the Orientalizing phase, to be re-established in the immediately pre-Roman era, which would
explain why no necropoleis have been found.
99 Gurt and Macías 2002, 88 ff.
226 D. Vaquerizo
to the period of the castrum and its first walls around the end of the 2nd c. B.C. have not
been recognised). The dearth of early cemeteries is also attributed to urban growth which
swallowed them up beneath new streets and insulae after the area was absorbed within the
walls.100 This seems to be a valid explanation for Cordoba,101 to judge from the latest find-
ings at the site of the theatre in the colonia,102 or the adjustments in chronology we have
been making regarding the oldest findings in the W, N and E necropoleis. Nevertheless,
there is no lack of Spanish cities (e.g., Valentia, Carmo) where their first burial areas have
been documented. Thus we are dealing with a problem of the intensity or quality of the
research, as well as good or bad luck affecting archaeological preservation, so one cannot
rule out the possibility that future excavations, or a detailed re-study of those already car-
ried out, may bring surprises.
Workshops and craftsmen

We may now be able to understand why the provincial élites of Baetica had a special pre-
dilection for certain types of funerary monuments. Almost always their preferences seem
to have been dictated by their origin (in cases when the deceased had arrived from outside)
their ideological affiliations, and their purchasing power, or they may simply have been a
way of emphasizing their cultural roots. This is seen in their fondness for monuments of
Late Republican origin crowned by lions that show a certain Hellenistic inspiration in their
conception and technique,103 although with respect to their models they are Italic, as we
see, for example, in the head, animal or human, which many hold by one paw in a striking
evocation of death. These are especially frequent in those parts of Baetica having a strong
Punic influence, such as Astigi, Baelo Claudia, Cappa, Conobaria, Carissa Aurelia, Gades, Hasta
Regia, Malaca, Nabrissa, Salaria, Salpensa, Ugia and Urso, and which concentrate around the
upper and middle stretches of the Guadalquivir river. The examples that hold the head of
a ram, calf or young deer in their paws concentrate on the left bank of the river. This might
provide clues as to the process of invasion and colonization by Rome; then again, it may
simply be the result of symbolic or religious factors.104
All this ties in with the complex subject of the progressive arrival in Hispania of
artistic tendencies and models by way of itinerant workshops, simple cartoons or multi-
directional trends whose main routes of entry were via the north-east and east of the penin-
sula as well, of course, as the south, the true melting-pot of all the influences arriving from
the central and E Mediterranean (including the large islands and the Italian peninsula)
and from N Africa, which were so important in shaping the pre-Roman substratum and
remained the permanent source of relations and exchanges. It is worth highlighting, too,
the fundamental rôle of the caput provinciae, which from the outset attracted the most able
100 Floriani Squarciapino 1958, 231.

101 In the case of Cordoba the traumatic events resulting from the Civil Wars and the siege and
destruction of the city by Caesar will have played a crucial rôle in affecting the extramural
funerary zones, particularly on the S side where the attack came from. Would this have led to
their being dismantled later, in the interests of the Augustan expansion? And what was done
with the tombs and the corpses of those killed in the combat?
102 Monterroso 2002, 135 ff.
103 This is only the case with those found on the upper and middle Guadalquivir, since those found
in the lower valley date back to the High Empire: Pérez López 1999, 22.
104 Pérez López 1999, 18 ff. and 22 ff.; Noguera and Rodríguez Oliva 2008, 406.
Fig. 12a-b. Torreparedones: cinerary urns with indigenous names (Centro CIL II, Alcalá de Henares; Saquete
2011, figs. 3-4).
craftsmen and was a place favoured by the rich mining and commercial élites to develop
their careers and bear public (and hopefully everlasting) testimony of their social rank
and financial means; it was also the nucleus from which materials, trends and influences
were radiated to the rest of Baetica.105 Besides the native élites, some came from outside,106
as is shown by inscriptions. In addition to the Attita from Carmona and Aurelius Vgaiddil-
lus from Italica, we note the inscriptions on some of the cinerary urns documented in the
provincia, including particularly those recovered at the family tomb of the Pompeii at Tor-
reparedones (Castro del Río-Baena, Córdoba),107 with dates running from the mid-1st c.
B.C. to the mid-1st c. A.D., and many names having Turdetanian and possibly Punic roots
(Icctnis, Aninna, Nanna, Velaunis, Ildrons, Igalghis, Insghana, Sisean, Bahanno and Vel-
gana), some of them individuals who bore the tria nomina (cf. Saquete 2011, 177, figs. 3-4 =
figs. 12a-b here).108
In this context, it does not surprise us that the cities of the Upper Guadalquivir (among
which Castulo might have played an intermediary rôle, channelling influences that arrived
from Corduba) show a lag compared with the provincial capital with respect to the typology
of the monuments and the materials used.109 This is partly due to their conservative tastes,
partly also to a shift in the socio-economic, military and political factors that had turned the
area into a relatively important one at the time of the conquest but which became greatly
105 Ruiz Osuna 2010.

106 In many cases they were simply freedmen, well represented among those who commissioned
Baetica’s most important funerary monuments, in which they could enjoy expenditures and
social liberties that were forbidden to them while living.
107 The E necropolis at this site, perhaps the colony Ituci Virtus Iulia, is being excavated at the
moment, and the first results (Tristell 2012) are promising, bringing new information that may
help refine some of the points made here.
108 Rodríguez Oliva 2002, 270 ff., pls. V-VI; Díaz Ariño 2008, 68 ff. and 226 ff., U41 ff.; Beltrán Fortes
et al. 2010. See in particular the work of Rodríguez Oliva 2002, 143-70, the most useful collec-
tion in a region that has barely preserved any noteworthy examples. When they do appear, it
is without exception in contexts and with formulas that are entirely Latin. Here again we need
to qualify any conclusions while awaiting in-depth research on the subject, comparable to that
being carried out in other parts of the empire (cf. Benedetti 2011).
109 Beltrán Fortes 2002, 255. Examples are Vrgavo, Tucci, Ossigi, Tugia, Iliturgi and Salaria. From
these cities comes an interesting repertoire of pieces belonging to monumental burial chambers
that, though well researched (cf. Beltrán Fortes and Baena 1996; Beltrán Fortes 2002, 243 ff.; Ruiz
Osuna 2010), always consist of disiecta membra recovered out of their archaeological context and
thus capable of contributing little to the study of the suburban funerary topography.
228 D. Vaquerizo
diminished with the Pax Augusta and suffered also because of its peripheral location with
respect to the new Colonia Patricia, engaged in an unprecedented phase of monumental
rebuilding that demanded the very best master-craftsmen available, whom it monopo-
lized. This in turn forestalled, or at least delayed, the arrival of new trends in other, less
ambitious cities, which remained faithful for much longer to monumental funerary mod-
els, particularly altars with pulvini and with ornamental aediculae.
Architectural models
Altars and portraits
Among the first architectural forms noted in Baetica (and also found in other parts of the
peninsula) are altars decorated with pulvini.110 The oldest examples, from Cordoba, which
include an unfinished item in local sandstone that proves beyond doubt the existence of
a local workshop, can be related chronologically to the early Augustan period.111 The first
comprehensive studies112 identified an important focus of production in the Upper Gua-
dalquivir region, extending progressively towards the south, with discoveries at Montoro,
Benamejí, Puente Genil, Torreparedones and, especially, the capital Cordoba.113 It is
becoming increasingly clear that in the Late Republic settlers from Italy brought to the
southern cities of the peninsula the funerary forms that were most fashionable in Rome
itself, disseminating them amongst local aristocrats eager to emulate the conquerors, and,
in particular, bringing those derived from monuments “a dado”: essentially, altars built on
a carved pedestal made out of local stone, with one or two pieces, that frequently incorpo-
rated portrait sculptures of the deceased. These were also produced by local workshops
that managed to adapt to the ongoing demands of the first Italian colonists.
Magnificent examples from civic or religious contexts have been found at Munigua,114
El Coronil115 or Torreparedones.116 Pieces found at Corduba are presumably from a funer-
ary context117 (figs. 13a-b). The relief with a seated couple from Orippo (Dos Hermanas)
has a composition typical of funerary stelae, characterized by frontal, severe and somewhat
geometric forms.118 To the same category belong the two married couples of Santaella119
and El Cerro de las Balas,120 near Ecija (figs. 14a-b); the fragment of statue of a woman
capite velato now in the cloisters of Santa María at the same town but not yet properly stud-
ied; the “Bear” of Porcuna, its right paw resting on the herm-portrait of the deceased and
possibly decorating or marking the location of a monumentum of the 1st c. B.C.;121 and the
110 For comprehensive work on the topic, see Beltrán Fortes 2004 and especially Clavería 2008; also
Vaquerizo 2010a, with prior bibliography.
111 Vaquerizo 2010a, 293 ff.
112 Beltrán Fortes 1990; Baena 1993; Beltrán Fortes and Baena 1996; Baena and Beltrán 2002.
113 Vaquerizo 2001, 148 ff., fig. 12.
114 Hertel 1993, 37 ff., Tables 8a-d, and 9a-b; Rodríguez Oliva 1996, 23 ff.
115 Noguera and Rodríguez Oliva 2008, 439 ff., fig. 40a.
116 Ibid. 428 ff., fig. 31a.
117 López and López 1998; Garriguet 2006, 211 ff., pl. 8; Liébana and Ruiz Osuna 2006, 310 ff., fig.
8; Ruiz Osuna 2010, 119 ff., fig. 22.
118 Rodríguez Oliva 1996, 19 ff., fig. 5; Noguera and Rodríguez Oliva 2008, 411 ff., figs. 20a-b.
119 López Palomo 1987.
120 Durán and Padilla 1990.
121 Rodríguez Oliva 1996, 16, fig. 1; Noguera and Rodríguez Oliva 2008, 38, figs. 1a-b. Some schol-
ars (e.g., Beltrán Fortes and Loza 2005) have proposed moving their chronology ahead to Julio-
Fig. 13. Corduba, E necropolis: funerary monu-

ment in c/ Muñices. a) Fragment of a female statue,
now lost (J. A. Garriguet); b) graphic anastylosis
of the monument in edicola (courtesy A. B. Ruiz).
Fig. 14a. Orippo (Dos Hermanas, Seville):

seated couple (DAInst-Madrid R150-89-12 Fig. 14b. Conobaria (Alcalá del Río, Seville): seated ladies
= Noguera and Rodríguez Oliva 2008, fig. (photo DAInst-Madrid R148-89-9; cf. Noguera and Rodríguez
5b). Oliva 2008, fig. 39).
230 D. Vaquerizo
two portraits of seated women recovered, like the previous example, out of context out-
side the walls of Conobaria (Cabezas de San Juan, Seville) next to the former estuary of the
Guadalquivir) and possibly the work of the same sculptor in about the third quarter of the
1st c. B.C.122 To the same site a third female capite velato portrait, in poor condition, may be
attributed; it is found on a stele that resembles a tabernacle with pediment and freestanding
columns, the only known example in Baetica of this type which originates in central Italy
but is infrequent at Rome.123
The most striking examples of this type of
sculpture in local stone are the “muñecos” (dolls)
of Baelo Claudia124 (fig. 15). These items have multi-
ple meanings and perhaps were multi-functional,
even polyvalent (they are not necessarily consist-
ent in their ultimate meaning). They evoked the
image of the lost relative, or the divinities charged
with their protection, in an unusual symbiotic rela-
tionship that seems to merge the deceased with
divinity. They may sometimes incorporate other
symbols of a commemorative, honorific, prestig-
ious or venerative character, or simply a votive
one; and they are always related to Roman ways of
understanding ritual and honouring the dead. It is
difficult to determine their cultural affiliation since
they are used in different contexts in the Mediter-
ranean world,125 which may argue in favour of a
phenomenon which might have had multiple ori-
gins. However, the latest research highlights their
selective appearance in the necropolis, in just one
specific area; also, cippi in the shape of a column
and anthropomorphic examples are found in dif-
ferent areas, and their parallelism with N African
Fig. 15. Baelo Claudia: “muñeco” (doll)
examples takes us back to the old interpretation
(Noguera and Rodríguez Oliva 2008, fig. 4c).
of anthropomorphic cippi as protective deities
under the possible tutelage of Saturn-Baal.126 We will have to await an exhaustive study
before we can qualify one or other of these interpretations. In any event, the cosmopoli-
tan, heterogeneous, busy and open character of the port of Baelo Claudia reflects how the
ancient Mediterranean world was becoming culturally homogeneous, and a fertile soil for
Claudian times, thus acknowledging the persistence of these monumental and sculptural for-
mulas of an unmistakable local colour (at least, stylistically speaking) still in Imperial times,
not to mention their symbolic character, as well as their ideological component. This argues in
favour of an increasingly more evident socio-cultural hybridization.
122 Noguera and Rodríguez Oliva 2008, 440 ff., fig. 39.
123 Beltrán Fortes 2007a, 136 ff., figs. 8-13, and 2008, 507 ff., pls. 4-7.
124 Jiménez Díez 2006, 2007 and 2008; Vaquerizo 2006a and 2008a; 2010a, 183 ff.; 2012b, 171 ff.
125 This includes the Etruscan world (e.g., in the Banditaccia necropolis at Cerveteri) or the towns
of Benevento and Tarento, where some funerary busts (mostly without context) are strikingly
similar to those found at Baelo Claudia: Rodríguez Oliva 2002, 279; Jiménez Díez 2007.
126 Prados 2011.
the impending triumph of Rome with its manifold

influences which were indebted to the original local
population, the colonists’ Italian origins, and com-
mercial ties.
It was not until the mid-1st c. B.C. that statues
would begin to be rendered in marble,127 a phenom-
enon that also affected private architecture, as we can
see at Corduba in the tumulus monuments of Puerta
de Gallegos, the first to make use of marble in con-
struction and decoration as early as the first decades
of the 1st c. A.D.128 This explains why workshops at
Corduba around the turn of the era still employed
limestone for the portrait recovered at the corner
of Ronda de los Tejares Avenue with Cruz Conde
Street, very limited from a technical point of view
and undoubtedly a reflection of local traditions,129
while using marble for the bust of an old man whose
exact provenance is unknown but which can be
clearly tied to metropolitan stylistic currents of the
Late Republic.130 Both examples are illustrative of
the hybridism and cultural transition taking place,
without renouncing the heritage of an indigenous
past. New formal codes, closely associated with
emerging ideological principles linked to the deep
social changes that were taking place, appeared in
the Baetican towns.131 In this context it is hardly sur-
prising that, from the very first moment, women too
had their portraits done in a way that would show
their characteristic Roman attributes.132 This was not
the case in other parts of the empire, where the “vin- Fig. 16. Corduba, at junction of avenues
dication” of Romanness and citizenship remained Ronda de los Tejares and Gran Capitán:
initially in the hands of men, who were occasionally statue of adolescent female wearing a toga
(J. A. Garriguet).
accompanied in funerary representations by their
wives still clothed in their indigenous robes.133
127 López López 1998; León Alonso 2001; Beltrán Fortes 2002, 241 ff.
128 Murillo et al. 2002.
129 León Alonso 2001, no. 5, 46 ff.; Ruiz Osuna 2010, 215 ff., pl. Xc.
130 León Alonso 2001, no. 5, 52 ff.
131 It is precisely this mutual adaptation to the current context and to the needs of each other or
to what was available (e.g., in the way of craftsmen or stone) which favours this ‘bilingual’
language, so often present in the artistic renderings of the last centuries of the Republic: cf.
Rodríguez Oliva 1996, 20 ff.; Noguera and Rodríguez Oliva 2008.
132 This is the case with two pieces from Corduba of a presumed funerary origin that confirm the
relative (and somewhat surprising) abundance of the type in Hispania as a public statement of
hereditary citizenship (López López 1998, 29 ff., cat. no. 4, pl. V; 108, cat. no. 46, pls. XLVI-XLVII;
Marcks 2008, pls. 6 and 12). See fig. 16 here.
133 Marcks 2008, 152, pls. 2-3.
232 D. Vaquerizo
Turriform monuments
It is not possible to establish the exact date that marked the introduction of turriform
monuments into Baetica; their exact morphology and origin are the subject of much contro-
versy.134 In this respect, one of the most significant cemeteries is the E one at Baelo Claudia,
where the erection of such structures, of varying sizes and characteristics, can go back
to the beginning of the 1st c. A.D. We have other examples in Baetica, usually scattered
and in rural environments,135 but with a certain proliferation in the province of Huelva.136
However, they are hardly documented in the other urban necropoleis in the south of the
peninsula which were dominated by other architectural forms that must have enjoyed a
certain local popularity. This is the case with the altars and aedicular monuments at Cor-
duba and in the Upper Guadalquivir, chamber tombs at Carmo, Gades or Carissa Aurelia (as
well as at Urso, despite the dynamics being different there), funerary precincts at Gades,
Baelo, Onoba or Corduba (the first and the last also feature hypogea or semi-hypogea), termina-
tions in the form of an altar top at Hispalis, cupae solidae in the area of Riotinto, and structiles
at Baelo, Carteia or Italica (see below).
Funerary precincts and enclosures
In the case of precincts, we find that the panorama varies depending on the city, largely
as a result of the state and quality of existing research. The archaeological reality of some of
the complexes studied in Baetica has surprisingly little to do with inscriptions in the same
cemeteries referring to “indicatio pedaturae” (the measured area) on sepulchral termini of
different forms, where the ultimate goal was to guarantee the integrity of the locus.137 In
Hispania, we have more than 160 definite cases (a number similar to that for Narbonensis),
to which a relatively precise chronology, between the 1st and the 2nd c. A.D., and a specific
area, virtually limited to the provinces of Baetica and Lusitania (the conventus Astigitanus,
Emeritensis and Cordubensis), can be assigned. Still, examples are not lacking in other parts
of the peninsula (conventus Carthaginensis, Tarraconensis, Scallabitanus), where they seem
mostly to have arrived from Baetica, and in fact the situation has changed in recent years
thanks to the finds made at the necropolis beneath the circus of Segobriga138 dated to the
first half or middle of the 1st c. A.D. Similar discoveries could still come to light in other
inland cities, so that in any evaluation of the spread of this epigraphic preference con-
sideration must be given to the rôle played by traders, mercatores and negotiatores (not to
mention army veterans), as well as their origin.
The abundance of these sepulchral termini (even though a considerable part of the pop-
ulation refrained from adding an epigraph that stated the size of their locus sepulturae — or
at least from doing so on stone), and the dimensions they indicate, confirm the high cost of
land in burial sectors in the peninsula, whose subdivision into small loca was due, perhaps,
to previous topographic planning. They also show a deep concern for leaving evidence,
written on stone and therefore imperishable, as to the size of the funerary enclosure in
question. In this way the spaces allocated to death were for ever given clear boundaries
in this world and the next, distinguishing them unmistakably from areas intended for
134 Abad 2011, with bibliography. See Prados 2011, 197, on the importance of the Punic tradition.
135 E.g., Corzo 1989a.
136 Vidal and Bermejo 2006, 39 ff.
137 Vaquerizo and Sánchez 2008 and 2009.
138 Abascal et al. 2008; Abascal, Alföldy and Cebrián 2011, nos. 193-97, 187 ff.
the living.139 The commissioner sought to confer his burial place with a public legal right
corresponding to the ius civile, reinforcing its character of res religiosa implicitly protected
by the ius pontificium,140 in a two-fold effort to safeguard its integrity for ever, thus guar-
anteeing the memoria and avoiding the dreaded violatio sepulcri. To judge by the results,
however, this was not always successful, in spite of the many precautions taken and the
vigilance and control of the extra-urban funerary zone exercised by the town’s appointed
ordo decurionum. This was, perhaps, one of the reasons why the loci mensurae eventually
disappear from tituli sepulcrales in the peninsula after a mere 4 or 5 generations; according
to some researchers, they were abandoned in favour of cemetery fines (a hypothesis we
have previously questioned). In my opinion, their abandonment, here and in other parts
of the empire, is a matter of fashion, which, as powerful in life as it was in death, imposed
new funerary expressions, both artistic and symbolic, in a development that mirrors other
areas of contemporary life.
From the moment of their first appearance in all the documented areas, the practice of
putting the indicatio pedaturae on stone supports was used by many different social classes,
without one being able to discern any clear correlation between a person’s legal status or
profession and the use of termini sepulcrales containing sepulcri mensurae, or between those
and the size of enclosures. It is only in some cases that it is possible to observe among the
tomb-owners a slight predominance of freedmen, who must have found in these customs
a rather effective way of safeguarding their tomb, at the same time as it offered a vehicle
for their self-presentation. At the moment, we have in Hispania only two examples of triple
cippi and five examples of double cippi (one of them without any mention of the pedatura,
and two of them in the capital of Baetica); there are, therefore, no quadruple termini, as are
found in neighbouring regions such as Narbonensis. Hence, it may have been the usual
procedure to use stone cippi just for the monumental façade of the monument or the locus,
creating the other angles with less expensive materials that have left no archaeological
trace or have gone unnoticed.
Cupae and brick vaults
Cupae (solidae, structiles) and brick vaults have been analyzed recently by others141 as
well as by myself,142 but, in spite of the latest opinions and the steady acknowledgement
that they are much more scattered in space and time than was initially supposed,143 the
cultural, typological and chronological problems remain, due among other reasons to the
scarcity of well-excavated finds and the lack of recent synthetic studies. In my view, which
139 Orlandi 2004, 383.

140 The ius pontificium appeared, de facto and in practice, in the ius funerum, following the legitimate
rite: Lazzarini 2005, 50.
141 Romanò 2009; Andreu 2010; Tupman 2011.
142 Vaquerizo 2006; 2010a, 300 ff.; 2012b.
143 See examples in the territory of the Vascones, the most northerly finds of cupae solidae in the
peninsula: Beltrán Lloris, Jordán and Andreu 2010. As far as chronology is concerned, it now
seems clear that the structiles, originating in the 1st c. A.D. (or perhaps even earlier), pre-date
the solidae. They then co-existed through the 2nd and 3rd c. (Beltrán de Heredia and Rodá 2010,
80), when they largely replaced stelae, cippi and altars (Quevedo and Ramallo 2010, 124). The
solidae disappear towards the end of the 3rd c., but the structiles last until the 5th c., as can be
seen, for example, in the necropolis at Tarragona–San Fructuoso or the villa at La Barquera
where the mausolea are of the family kind and perhaps more like vaulted tombs than cupae
strictly speaking (Gorostidi and López 2010, 49 ff.).
234 D. Vaquerizo
Fig. 17. Riotinto, necropolis at La Dehesa: cupae (courtesy J. A. Pérez Macías).

agrees with that of L. Bacchielli,144 there are specific ways of understanding the tumu-
lus which at certain moments, and especially in some urban, semi-urban and even rural
contexts in the Roman West — for reasons that would have to be analyzed in each case
—, enjoyed great popularity among certain classes of a moderate or low economic level,
chiefly small traders, craftsmen, miners,145 slaves and the occasional soldier, who all dis-
covered in them an affordable way of ‘monumentalizing’ their burials, independent of the
funerary rites being used, and to all appearances a rather efficient way of setting them-
selves apart from the more typical Roman tomb types, or perhaps as a way of comparing
themselves with those.146 In Baetica we can highlight Baelo Claudia in this respect for its
cupae structiles,147 to be connected to a population of craftsmen and traders involved in
ongoing transactions with N Africa; and we can mention Riotinto for its solidae.
Following an initial consideration by G. D. B. Jones,148 the cupae of Riotinto (fig. 17)
have recently been the subject of a specialized study149 which has for the first time high-
lighted the most relevant aspects. They are mostly (but not entirely) concentrated in the
necropolis of La Dehesa (associated with the village of Cortalago/Llano de los Tesoros)
along the main road that linked Onoba with Augusta Emerita. They must have covered
cremation burials,150 and seem to have become popular in the course of the 2nd c. A.D.151
144 Bacchielli 1986, 306 ff.

145 Many of them are freedmen with a certain preponderance of Greek names, although there is
no lack of ingenui, in more than one instance from a new generation (see the contributions in
Andreu 2010).
146 This idea is reinforced by the custom of finishing off certain examples of cupae solidae with pul-
vini, in the manner of funerary altars and arae, which seems to imply a desire to make them
equivalent with the monumental or prevailing funerary landscape of these areas. They were not
necessarily inexpensive burials, but they were affordable by those (independent of their social
class) who had a certain level of purchasing power (Beltrán Lloris, Jordán and Andreu 2010, 147
and 172 ff., figs. 17-18; Gorostidi and López 2010, 45 ff.).
147 Paris et al. 1926.
148 Jones 1980.
149 Pérez Macías and Delgado 2010.
150 Cupae solidae were used solely above cremation burials, whilst the structiles alternated between
cremation and inhumation until the latter prevailed.
151 The same date that is attributed to the only cupa solida known at Corduba: Vaquerizo 2006 and
They were perhaps directly influenced

by Italica and above all by Mérida, seat of
the imperial legate charged with admin-
istering the mining district, with which
Riotinto (Urium) would have had perma-
nent contacts.152 Rather numerous cupae
were recovered, without exception out
of context. They were carved by a local
workshop in the same kind of iron min-
eral (red gossan)153 but are of different
sizes. The largest incorporate an inden-
Fig. 18. Mérida: polychrome cupa (T. Nogales; drawing
tation (a section chiselled down to be
by J. M. Jérez Linde = Nogales, Ramírez and Murciano
lower) to insert the inscription, the titu- 2010, fig. 10).
lus sepulcralis, in the customary manner of
cupae structiles, as seen at Baelo Claudia, although two more cases are known on the tops of
cupae solidae in Tarraco154 and another possible one at Augusta Emerita,155 so that it could not
have been altogether strange and perhaps depended on the taste of the commissioner or
on the workshop. The plentiful epigraphy preserved at Riotinto, never associated with this
kind of monument, rules out any large-scale presence of N African elements in the mining
complex or their exclusive use by a slave population, but their possible connection with
collegia funeraticia, as has been supposed for the sepulcretum in the Plaza Vila de Madrid at
Barcino,156 cannot be excluded.
It goes without saying that it would be rash to deny the occasional use of these funer-
ary structures by people of strictly N African origin or by those related in some way to that
region, from which they could have brought a family preference for these types of burials
or where they could personally have witnessed how widespread they were; but this is not
the case, among other reasons because many of these peoples would serve to strengthen
the social classes of whom we have spoken, and because, deep down, they were well inte-
grated into the sphere of Rome, having been brought up within the same W Mediterranean
framework that had nourished the southern half of the Iberian peninsula.157 We should
2008b; Stylow 2010.

152 On the other hand, some authors (Beltrán de Heredia and Rodá 2010, 84) opt for direct influence
from N Africa, especially from Volubilis.
153 Although there are examples of polychrome (vegetable or geometric patterns), many cupae
structiles use red as the only or at least the predominant colour (see, e.g., Quevedo and
Ramallo 2010, 132); thus the choice, certainly deliberate, of red gossan for the cupae solidae at
Riotinto attracts our attention (Pérez Macías and Delgado 2010, 334). Recent studies suggest
that this kind of cupa could have been covered in some cases with stucco and also painted
(Nogales, Ramírez and Murciano 2010, 358, fig. 10 = fig. 18 here), just as the epitaphs too would
sometimes be painted.
154 Gorostidi and López 2010, 31 ff., figs. 4-5. The chronological disparity of almost a century
between the cupa and the titulus of one of them could point to a re-use of the former in the 3rd
c. A.D. (Gorostidi and López 2010, 34 ff., figs. 5-6).
155 Nogales, Ramírez and Murciano 2010, 358, fig. 8.
156 Beltrán de Heredia and Rodá 2010, 107 ff.
157 This Hellenistic origin has also been underlined by other scholars (cf. Beltrán de Heredia and
Rodà 2010, who tend to consider it part of a cultural koiné rather than a specific geographical
source).
236 D. Vaquerizo
not forget that the choice of tomb type in the Roman world depended on one’s financial
capacity, and sometimes one’s social status, more than it did on ethnic characteristics, with
individual preferences coming into play only then. Further, the tomb was chosen early on
as a way to leave public and explicit testimony of one’s cultural preferences and Romanitas.
An unfinished story
The funerary landscape of the cities of Baetica evolved, as in many other parts of the
empire, in an important manner over time, adapting itself progressively and irreversibly
to changes in the Roman mentality, which, as the centuries went by, accorded greater
importance to the interior of the tomb and the private nature of grief at the same time that
it moved away from the public show and ostentation so characteristic of the final years
of the Republic and the beginning of the new régime. This continued until the 3rd c. A.D.
At that point, alongside the unstoppable triumph of inhumation (which to a great extent
occurred hand in hand with Christianity),158 there came substantial changes in ritual and
grave goods, architectural forms and funerary containers, the ‘popularization’ of funerary
epigraphy, and the use of new formulas, materials and supports; the public demonstra-
tion, as a statement for all to see, followed, in line with what was happening in the world
of the living. It would be at this moment that sculpture workshops suffered a crisis. Little
by little, the face of the empire would be transformed, developing new patterns of expres-
sion that would prevail in the following centuries.159
In contrast with the pagan population which, as a whole, never acquired much of a
rooted sense of community at least as far as the topography of its burials is concerned, from
the 3rd c. Christians tended to be buried among Christians, in common spaces governed by
the new and fundamental idea of a shared religion, in coemeteria conceived as part and par-
cel of the community, funerary spaces occupied not by the dead but by those sleeping in
the hope of resurrection.160 Thus there emerged a new urban panorama, marked by burials
grouped en masse around the tombs ad sanctos, martyria and basilicas, both intra- and extra-
mural.161 Meanwhile, sarcophagi continue to be the most important personal expressions
of devotion and luxury, as well as serving as a support for scenes drawn from the Old and
New Testaments, with whose semantic content the deceased identified. At the same time
they stood out with respect to the community, the necropolis or the family monument.
As happened in pagan necropoleis, a certain preeminence was being sought after, but
now it was through proximity to relics, to the site that housed prayer and liturgy, to the
most frequented places, so as to enjoy that privilege and to experience the humility of being
trodden on by everyone for ever and ever — something that, in principle, and especially
158 This was the general tendency, even though there are exceptions that call for caution. This is
the case in Gaul, where inhumation does not completely establish itself until the start of the
4th c. (Blaizot et al. 2007, figs. 2-4), or with cemeteries studied by the Catholic University of
Milan, where cremation continued to be used, accompanied by quite abundant and important
grave goods, until the middle of the same century, in this case with a clear ideological intent of
a strongly conservative nature, one that opposed the adjacent emerging Christian cemeteries
with pagan practices (Ortalli 2007, 209-10).
159 Rodríguez Oliva 2002, 289 ff.
160 Joh. Chrysos., In coemet. appel. 1: ‘this place is called a cemetery so that you know that those who
are laid to rest here are not dead, but sleeping’; cf. Muñiz 2007, 130.
161 Mateos 1999; Sánchez Ramos 2006, 2007 and 2009; Castro, Pizarro and Sánchez 2006; Beltrán de
Heredia 2008.
in the episcopal complexes, was reserved for the élites. Thus a new way of understanding
cemetery spaces emerged. In it is rooted a huge range of subsequent funerary manifesta-
tions (which have continued down to our own day162) at the same time that burials began
to proliferate inside the city walls. In this way the Hispano-Romans took up again their old
tendency to be buried close by their dwellings,163 something that had been forbidden by
law since the 5th c. B.C. This process coincided with the crisis that affected urban space in
late antiquity.
dvaquerizo@uco.es Sísifo Research Team (Plan Andaluz for I+D+i, HUM-236)
Área de Arqueología, Universidad de Córdoba.
This article was translated from the Spanish by Patricia Manjavacas Sneesby.
Note and acknowledgements

I am dealing here with a theme which I have already covered (2010a), with the idea of offering in
English a brief summary limited to the aspects most relevant for an international audience. Since
the publication of my book on the necropoleis of Baetica there have been so many new develop-
ments prompted by the growing importance attached to burial archaeology in Andalusia that it is
also worth returning to it in order to consolidate, qualify and even correct certain earlier hypotheses.
The work falls within the framework of the Research Project “De la urbs a la civitas: transformaciones
materiales e ideológicas en suelo urbano desde la etapa clásica al Altiomedioevo. Córdoba como
laboratorio”, financed by the Dirección General de Investigación y Gestión del Plan Nacional I+D+I.
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación in 2010 (HAR2010-16651; Subprograma HIST). I wish to thank
J. H. Humphrey for the trouble he has taken so that this article could appear here translated. I also
wish to thank colleagues who have provided bibliography or photographs: they include J. Andreu,
E. Cerrato, L. Fernández, J. A. Garriguet, J. A. Pérez, F. Prados, I. Rodríguez Temiño, and the CICAP
(Sistema de Información del Conjunto Arqueológico de Carmona), A. B. Ruiz, P. Quesada and others
at the Museo Arqueológico de Sevilla.
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Topography, Monumentalization and Funerary Customs in Urban Necropoleis in Baetica

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Topography, monumentalization and funerary

customs in urban necropoleis in Baetica

between reality and desire. References to

Martínez 2007, cat. no. Seville-10, 345-48.

Archaeological reality: hybridism?

Fig. 3a-b. Corduba, N necropolis: funerary monu-

(2006, 2007 and 2008) and M. Bendala (2006a-b).

Fig. 6. Carmona, W necropolis:

34 Varro, LL 5.25. Pérez Maestro 2007.

funebris51 efficiently honoured their most relevant

63 Ortalli 2007, 203.

Martí 1999; Polo and García Prosper 2002, 138.

Workshops and craftsmen

100 Floriani Squarciapino 1958, 231.

105 Ruiz Osuna 2010.

Fig. 13. Corduba, E necropolis: funerary monu-

Fig. 14a. Orippo (Dos Hermanas, Seville):

the impending triumph of Rome with its manifold

139 Orlandi 2004, 383.

Fig. 17. Riotinto, necropolis at La Dehesa: cupae (courtesy J. A. Pérez Macías).

144 Bacchielli 1986, 306 ff.

They were perhaps directly influenced

2008b; Stylow 2010.

Note and acknowledgements

162 Rébillard 2003; Sánchez Ramos 2007; Beltrán de Heredia 2008.

Actas de la I Reunión sobre escultura romana en Hispania (Madrid) 63-76.

Jones, G. D. B. 1980. “The Roman mines at Riotinto,” JRS 70, 146-65.

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