Lost Heritage. Architectural Replacement of an Atrium and a Courtyard of the Roman Houses of Armea (Allariz, Ourense)

Abstract

Francisco Conde-Valvís’s so-called “stone treasure” is a set of unique carved stone pieces, such as bases, column shafts, a mortar, and decorated fragments (trisqueles and rosettes), found during the 2018 excavation campaign in the Cibdá de Armea (Allariz, Ourense). They had been piled up and re-buried—no records existed as to where—at the western end of the Finca de A Atalaia, which was excavated in the 1950s under the direction of Conde-Valvís and began to be excavated again in 2011. The thorough review of the graphic and textual material available from the old excavations allowed us to determine the original archaeological context of the pieces. Most of these elements belonged to the atria of the so-called “Domus of Hexasquel” (North house) and “Domus of the Rosette” (South house). Once we established the origin of all the elements, especially with the aid of the old photographs, it was decided to reintegrate them into the site, to increase the educational and interpretive value of Armea, instead of burying them indefinitely in the warehouses of a museum.

Keywords

• conservation–restoration
• musealisation
• lithic elements
• Roman sites
• Galicia