Archaeology Magazine - September 1961 - 45

Barcelona

continued

foundations are shallow; the little of it exposed so far
suggests pre-Roman origin, perhaps Iberian. It extends
the full fifteen-meter width of the 1959 excavation,
crosses under the museum and reappears beyond it. It
seems possible that after the raids, when the limits of
the city were contracted, the authorities chose to build
their new wall along the line of the earlier one, whose
base at least still existed. This would have made particularly good sense when they were building in a hurry.
The exact relationship between the two walls is still
unclear, nor has the cyclopean wall yet been dated. And
the rest of its circuit is still a mystery.
To get at the remains below ground level it was
necessary to cut through a considerable overlay of modern foundation; in addition, the fill itself was very solidly compacted. This made for a noisy dig, with pneumatic drills yammering away much of the time- a sort
of infernal dentistry on a monumental scale (Figure 7).
The operators were sharp-eyed and light-handed, however. Almost never was a find more than scratched, and
there has been only one case of serious damage since
the campaign began in 1957.
Votive altars are frequently found and cover a fairly
wide spectrum of artistic achievement, although so far
there is no elaborate decoration nor esoteric funerary
symbolism. Two altars found intact provide a good example of how the wall builders appropriated monuments
for construction material and tossed them in to form the
fill (Figure 8). Closer inspection of the numerous altars
found shows that many of them carry a curious axeshaped sign ; many other funerary pieces have one somewhere on their surface (Figure 9) . Its exact significance
is still being debated ; theories run from a stonecutter's
mark to an insigne of a burial society or a cult symbol.
Regarding the altars, it would be tempting to speculate on a decline in quality as the third century advanced,
although the economic status of the families involved
may actually have had more to do with it. Serra has
noted that we really know practically nothing about the
layout of the city before the third century, although we
are almost embarrassed by the number of inscriptions
from that period. On the other hand, as he says, monuments from the fourth century on are preserved, chief
among them being the wall itself; yet there is not a
single inscription safely datable after 300. It is almost
as if the population had suddenly lost the ability to read
and write.
Three column fragments found with the two altars
(Figure 8) are typical of many discovered in the wall,
with the scale pattern characteristic of funerary architecture. Another large fragment of a column, which

carries an interesting reference to contemporary building
techniques in the heavy rope border and in the lighter
ropes tied in a knot, shows that not everything in the
cemeteries was as crude as are some of the altars found
(Figure 10).
Three large matching architectural members with
Gorgon heads have turned up whose form suggests that
they were corners of the frieze of a rectangular mausoleum (Figure 11). They have been tentatively reassembled, and along with them has been placed a large, well
cut inscription mentioning a man who might have had
such a monument. The history of the three legions in
which he served- III Augustalis, XXX Ulpia Victrix
and VII Gemina Felix- dates the inscription to the
early second century (Figure 12).
The corpus of inscriptions continues to grow; the
total for the whole campaign in the Calle de la Tapinería has already gone well beyond one hundred.
All but a few of the finds are funerary, almost all are
of local stone or the typical reddish Tarragona stone,
and most of them are surely of local or at least provincial
origin. But a few other interesting pieces have turned up,
proving that not only funerary monuments were sacrificed, and confirming the atmosphere of crisis in which
the wall was built. One is a Diana of Italian marble, a
little on the muscular side (Figure 13). The back is
unfinished, indicating that the statue stood in a niche
in some shrine or temple. A base for a statue of Diana
(though probably not this one) was found some years
ago not far away; it suggests the existence of a temple to
Diana and Augustus from which this statue may have
come. A head of the younger Faustina represents her as
a young girl but already with her characteristic hairdress (Figure 14). The prize so far is a head of Antoninus Pius, found near that of his daughter. Both are
of Italian marble and life-sized (Figure 15). The emperor is older here than in some of his other portraits;
his hairline has receded and he looks a little weary. But
there is a thoughtfulness about the expression that is
especially appealing, and a gentle firmness in the profile
which might be called typically Antonine. It is a worthy
example of imperial portraiture, one that strikes an appropriate note on which to close a description of the
Roman walls of Barcelona, which are tardily but steadily yielding up their secrets.
The Author is AssistantProfessorof RomanceLanguages'
at the University of Kansas. He received the B.A. degree
from Western ReserveUniversity,the M.A. and Ph.D. from
the Universityof Wisconsin,where he taught before moving
to Kansas. Dr. Weiss' study of the archaeologyof Spain
stemsfrom his wider interest in Hispano-Romanhistory and
civilization. He has traveled extensivelyin Spain and has
worked with the staff of BarcelonaArchaeologicalMuseum.
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Archaeology Magazine - September 1961

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - September 1961