I would like to thank Martin Davies
for his assistance with the English version of this article
for his assistance with the English version of this article
1. INTRODUCTION
In this brief article we will divulge the archaeological discovery last year of
two funerary inscriptions made this year during the excavation of the
Romano-Byzantine site of Ses Camarones (Figs. 1 and 2).
The settlement consists of a Romano-Byzantine domus (villa). Whose date
has been established from ceramic findings. In the layers of earth covering and
filling the rooms were numerous ceramic artefacts of local production that can
be ascribed to the 6th-7th centuries AD: these are
generally fragments of bases, handles and rims of the amphora type RE-0103.
The site is made up of two areas which had different functions or uses.
A pars
urbs or residential area, in the northern part of the excavation,
composed of at least eight rooms. This domestic/residential section is
separated from the agricultural/wooded area by a wall that runs diagonally across the site. The two inscriptions were found here, reused in the
masonry of the external house walls.
Fig. 1. Aerial photography of Ses Camarones site.
Fig. 2. Plan of the settlement.
2. INSCRIPTION No. 1 (Context 16015)
Roman tombstone reused as masonry within Wall Context 16039. The inscription is upside down and its lower half
(i.e. end) is missing. The calcareous stone block was cut with
an axe and is parallelepiped (0.40 x 0.47 x 0.48 m) (Figs. 3 and 4).
The capital letters of this funerary inscription
are chiselled in a rudimentary way, and 4 lines are clearly
legible:
D (is) M (anibus) / L (ucio) VALERI / O MARTI / ALI
Translation: To the manes gods/ for Lucius Valeri/us Marti/alis
The rest is, at present, illegible. The first line contains the typical funerary dedication found on Roman tombstones, to the manes (deified souls of deceased ancestors). The word sacrum is absent, so we can ascribe it to a later period, perhaps as late as the Late Roman Empire (2nd-3rd centuries AD).
The Roman tria nomina (i.e. full name, in 3 parts) of the deceased follows on the second to fourth lines: praenomen (first name), nomen (gens or family clan, i.e. surname) and cognomen (name, or sometimes a nickname, of the family line within the gens). Lucius (Lucio in dative) corresponds to the first name of the deceased, who belonged to the Valerius gens and to the Martialis family.
An interesting hypothesis would be to try and trace a possible relationship with the Roman poet and epigrammatist Martial (40-104 AD, full name Marcus Valerius Martialis), born in Bilbilis, present-day Calatayud in Aragon. After several years of serious economic hardship, the poet moved to Rome in 64 AD, where he managed to secure the patronage of several important nobles as well as two emperors, Titus and Domitian. It highly likely that thanks to the support of this imperial dynasty, the Flavians, that the Valerius tribe was able to acquire possessions in Roman Ebusus. It should be borne in mind that around this time Ibiza, above all its capital, received a considerable boost thanks to the decree of ius Latii or Latin Rights (74
AD), conferring municipal status on numerous Roman colonies which had previously been Punic. This transformation ushered in large-scale public works on Ibiza, such as the aqueduct bringing water to the capital: one
of its sections is relatively close to the site that concerns us on this report
(see https://iboshimarchaeology.blogspot.com/2018/02/ca-sobrador-un-nou-tram-de-laqueducte.html). The decree also allowed both Roman citizens and natives of the island to purchase and sell plots of lands, previously reserved to those who had Roman citizenship. It is within this context that we can imagine the possible arrival on Ibiza of
the Valerius Martialis clan.
Fig. 3. Picture of the inscription context 16015.
Fig. 4. Drawning of the inscription.
3. INSCRIPTION Nº2
(Context 16021)
Roman tombstone
reused as wall masonry Context 16022. The upper half is missing. The
parallelepiped limestone block (0.49 x 0.47 x 0.41 m) (Figs. 5 and 6) was dressed
(i.e. cut) using a mason’s axe.
It is a funerary
inscription whose letters are chiselled in rustic capitals with divisions
between the words marked by dots halfway up the height of the letters, and,
more elaborately, by hederae (ivy-leaf designs). The 4 lines
that can be transcribed (i.e. clearly legible) are as follows:
AN (nis) VIII M
(ensis) IIII / D (iebus) XXVII / PATER FILIO / PIISSIMO
The first two
lines refer to the age of the deceased: 9 years, 4 months and 27 days. The
following two bear the dedication: "from his father to his most dutiful
son".
This type of
rustic capitals with hederae divisions is usually ascribed to
the third century AD.
Fig. 5. Picture of the inscription context 16021.
Fig. 6. Drawning of the inscription.
4. INTERPRETATION
These burial
inscriptions must originally have come from a Roman cemetery attached to a
village that has yet to be found in the area currently under excavation. A
burial zone has indeed been found in the area of the Ca na Negreta bypass,
but it is too early to positively link it with these two tombstones.
The relocation of
these inscriptions points to a change in local
religious customs: reusing two pagan tombstones in a Byzantine site indicates
the presence of a Christian culture. It is unthinkable that individuals
belonging to the same religious or sectarian affiliation would have desecrated
the graves.
These remains are
therefore part of a break in local rituals and customs, clear evidence of
Ibiza’s transition from the pagan to the Christian worlds.
5. PERSONAL NOTE
The circumstances
underlying this brief report are highly regrettable, but faced with the
ruthlessness and egocentricity that permeates the world of commercial
archaeology and the genuine risk of being deprived of authorship of the findings
and the rights of publication, I find myself with no real alternative.
What is this risk?
It has two aspects. In the first place, the director of the project, Ricardo
Belizón Aragón, who was absent for four months (without any written notification
to his contractor, the Consell d’Eivissa) insisted on maintaining his position
of director despite his complete absence, thereby denying me any possibility of
publication, even though I was the one who made the discoveries in which he
played no role whatsoever. The second risk is that my own archaeological
reports are being published online to this very day, at the website Obrim
Camins, (by the UTE Tecopsa, Hnos. Parrot and the Consell d'Eivissa), assigning
authorship to the first two (Tecopsa and Parrot), in flagrant usurpation of
copyright (articles 10-1, 14-3, 139, 140 and concordant of Law 1/1996 of
Intellectual Property, of April 12 1996).
