At the foot of the Caesaraugusta-Pompelo road, in an elevated area and halfway between the Pyrenees and the Ebro, a proud Roman city of some 24 hectares stood in the 1st century.
The traveler who traveled along the great cobbled road that linked the current Pamplona and Zaragoza could distinguish in the distance the glow of the multiple bronze equestrian sculptures that covered the central urban forum, including the main one, the one dedicated to Emperor Tiberius.
That Roman municipality, today the site of Los Bañales (Comarca de las Cinco Villas, Zaragoza), inexplicably disappeared at the beginning of the 3rd century before the fall of the empire and the great barbarian invasions.
Now, a video game with a script from various European universities, including that of Navarra, and funding from the European Union allows you to walk through its streets,
More information
The unsuspected size of the Roman city of Flaviaugusta comes to light
The European project
Valete vos viatores: traveling through Latin inscriptions across the Roman Empire
(So long, travelers: traveling through Latin inscriptions around the Roman Empire) aims to bring the culture of Rome closer to young people through the use of new digital tools.
The Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Navarra, together with the universities of Coimbra (Portugal), Sapienza of Rome, Bordeaux (France) and the Museo Nazionale Romano, have participated in this project that reconstructs, in addition to Los Bañales, several Western Roman sites.
The 3D video game has been produced by The Longest Road, a prestigious independent studio.
Aerial view of the Los Bañales site, in Uncastillo (Zaragoza).Javier Andreu
The player thus becomes a craftsman engraver of inscriptions
(scriptor)
who travels from Rome to Lusitania.
On his way he stops in Los Bañales in the 1930s, just when the legends of homage to Tiberius promoted by the military man Q. Sempronio Vítulo and which were located in the 2015 excavation campaign are being carved. The character will visit this way the city, including the forum, the quarries and the
lapidary office,
where the inscriptions were engraved.
The video game can be downloaded from the STEAM platform.
An archaeologist working in the area where the Los Bañales peristyle has been found.Javier Andreu
This city was born as a vascón
oppidum
(elevated and fortified settlement) between the 6th and 5th centuries BC.
C., but it was not until the end of I a.
C. ―coinciding with the foundation of the nearby Caesaraugusta (15-14 BC)― when it received its great constructive impulse.
It lived its splendor in the Julio Claudia and Flavia times (1st century), but suffered, according to research, a strong crisis in the 2nd century and was definitively abandoned in the 3rd, before the barbarian invasions.
The cause of its disappearance is not clear, although it is suspected that it could be due to the economic difficulties of maintaining such a luxurious enclave and its proximity to the great Caesaraugusta.
The first news of its ruins was offered by the Portuguese traveler Juan Bautista Labaña in 1610. But it was not until the forties of the last century that José Galiay Sarañana undertook the first excavations, which Antonio Beltrán Martínez continued 30 years later.
Since 2009, Javier Andreu Pintado, professor of Ancient History at the University of Navarra and director of the Archeology Diploma at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, has taken over.
Visitors to Los Bañales in front of the Roman baths at the Aragonese site. Javier Pérez Gómez
And what is currently shown of that city?
Eight decades of research have made it possible to recover and make it possible to visit its spectacular forum ―of “imposing majesty”, according to Andreu―;
a partially rebuilt hot springs;
its aqueduct ―350 meters long and of which 38 pillars survive―;
an artisan and residential neighborhood, in addition to various streets of the population.
But the archaeologists have not only located urban structures, but also a wide range of material that goes through equestrian pedestals ―thrown inside the basilica after the destruction of the city―, sculptures, ceramics, funerary steles, milestones, amulets ―one of them a small gold phallus―, sarcophagi, inscriptions... So much material has been recovered that part of it is exhibited in a virtual museum,
where the visitor can admire the most representative in 3D and with detailed explanations.
In any case, and despite having found so many objects, the specialists have not yet found any inscription that mentions the name of that municipality of some 2,500 inhabitants, although they are considering calling it Tarraca, a Basque settlement cited by the Greek geographer Ptolemy .
Pillars of the aqueduct of Los Bañales. Antonio Pérez Gómez
Since 2017, after finishing the excavation of the forum and the artisan area or neighborhood of the baths, the experts from the University of Navarra have focused their efforts on the northernmost neighborhood.
Andreu explains it this way: “This neighborhood was a great showcase facing the Riquel river valley and, therefore, the space that it constituted, between oaks, esparto grass, vines, wheat fields and olive groves, was the economic lung of the city”.
A large
decumanus
(cobblestone street oriented east-west) with overpasses for pedestrians and a
cardo
(north-south street) has been found here.
And this summer the
decumanus has been excavated
that served as the entrance road for travelers who passed through the Caesaraugusta-Pompelo road and who were attracted by the city of bronze equestrian statues.
Last month, an eight-column peristyle belonging to a building whose usefulness is still unknown was also unearthed, although it is suspected that it was part of "an area of representation and display of merchandise control."
Between the 22nd and 24th of this September, the Centro de Estudios de las Cinco Villas celebrates the
Pecunia comunis meeting.
Economic resources and sustainability of small Roman cities.
The conference is attended by the best experts from the universities of Los Angeles (United States), Barcelona, Navarra, Pau et des Pays de l'Adour (France), Bordeaux, Oxford (United Kingdom), Cádiz, Zaragoza, Liverpool (United Kingdom ), Seville and Coimbra (Portugal).
Together they will try to clarify why this Roman municipality inexplicably disappeared, and now it can only be fully reconstructed in a fun and educational 3D video game.
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