The drought reveals the secrets of the Roman city of Augustobriga

The reports from the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge indicated in December 2021 that 45% of the national territory was on pre-alert, alert or emergency due to drought.

However, this serious water situation soon became a great opportunity for archaeologists.

The Valdecañas reservoir (Bohonal de Ibor, Cáceres) was at historical lows, which made it possible to study for the first time with 21st century technology the remains of the Roman city of Augustobriga, covered by the waters of the swamp in 1957. Now, the National Museum of Roman Art, in its publication

discloses the results of this research in the volume

and recreates the appearance of that 22-hectare walled city.

The investigations have also made it possible to document three necropolises, several temples, a funerary inscription ―which has been extracted and deposited in the Museum of Cáceres―, as well as a possible cistern, among other elements.

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Classical texts pointed to Augustobriga as a Roman urban center in Vetonian Lusitania, on the same road that linked the large cities of Augusta Emérita (Mérida) and Cesaraugusta (Zaragoza).

Its place name would be the product of joining the name of Emperor Augustus and the root

, very common in other Celtiberian settlements such as Turobriga or Dessobriga.

There is news of this Roman city since the 16th century, when various scholars of the time were interested in its ruins, then integrated into the urban area of ​​the disappeared Talavera la Vieja ―currently also under water―.

However, no one knew her name, until an epigraph was discovered in the 19th century that identified her as Augustobriga (

).

In 1931, two of its great temples were declared a Historic-Artistic Monument: Los Mármoles and La Cilla.

Both stood in what was the forum, the noblest part of the city.

But the construction of the reservoir at the end of the sixties of the last century (7,300 hectares flooded) made it necessary to move them to a higher point to ensure their conservation.

In 2019, one of the most marked drops in the water levels of the reservoirs that can be remembered occurred in Extremadura and some vestiges of Augustobriga were once again visible.

To manage his study, the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, in coordination with the Junta de Extremadura, created a working group.

In 2021, investigations began through photogrammetric flights and a survey of the surface.

This is how a funerary inscription was extracted and, in the surroundings, some materials from Roman and Late Antique chronology.

Aerial photograph of the Valdecañas reservoir in the summer of 2021, where Talavera la Vieja is distinguished, the population that assumed the layout and the imposing buildings of Augustobriga.Tecnitop SA-Ministry of Culture and Sports

The results of the investigations of the archaeologists Emilio Gamo Pazos, Juan José Gordón Baeza, José María Murciano Calles, Rafael Sabio González, and Ángel Villa González reveal that Augustobriga reached an average size (22 hectares) and that it was walled.

The fortified enclosure ran parallel to the Tagus River, tracing an almost semicircular route.

Its masonry was granite and joined with lime mortar.

In some points, square towers rose.

“It had”, the authors of the study explain, “with at least three entrances: south, east and west.

Within the city, according to our data, the blocks configured a regular orthogonal pattern.

It had three

[large east-west streets] about six meters wide, parallel to each other and to the Tagus”.

For their part, the

[north-south streets] had a smaller width, about four meters.

The sewage system ran below them and near the baths.

The forum was located in the center of the semicircle formed by the wall and on the edge of a ravine.

The aforementioned temples of Los Mármoles and La Cilla were located there, whose podium has now been studied under the water.

"La Cilla occupied the center of the plaza, while Los Mármoles was diverted to the northwest, breaking the axiality, which suggests that there was another nearby, a second twin temple to the west," the archaeologists assert.

Roman columns of Augustobriga (Cáceres). Luis Castañeda (Getty)

They have also detected a platform of granite blocks next to a possible channel, a pond or cistern and an enormous fallen mass of

or Roman concrete.

“The mass of

is overturned and dragged, but the space left by it above can be well observed, evidencing that it has fallen from the surroundings and that, therefore, it is currently close to its original position.

It could be the remains of another temple, totally razed, that would have a pond.

The town square was porticoed, at least on the south, east, and west fronts, with granite columns.

As the forum had a marked unevenness over the Tagus, thick foundation and leveling walls were built both for the Los Mármoles temple and to support the eastern and western porticos of the forum.

But in addition to the main square, experts have documented other possible buildings of a public nature.

To the southeast of the forum "a new square seems to be distinguished, of smaller dimensions and to the northeast some baths, from which several rooms have been distinguished".

In future interventions, the experts could confirm "possible buildings for shows," they say in the report.

Plan with the possible location of the Augustobriga buildings.

Outside the walled space, a villa and an aqueduct for the water supply have also been located.

Archaeologists have also identified three necropolises, all of them close to the primitive accesses to the city, and two towers that could have reached two meters in height.

With all these data, the plan of the city has been drawn.

The specialists conclude in their report that, in the future, it will be necessary "to carry out other interventions at the site, aimed at both evaluating the state of conservation [of the city], as well as carrying out geophysical surveys that provide information regarding the identification of certain urban structures” that they have not been able to determine.

An entire Roman city under water.

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