Abicada (Villa Romana de Abicada or Estação romana da Quinta da Abicada) is the name of

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

ruins in Mexilhoeira Grande, to the north of the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of Alvor,

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Portimão Portimão () is a city and a municipality in the district of Faro, in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. The population in 2011 was 55,614, in an area of 182.06 km2. It was formerly known as Vila Nova de Portimão (). In 1924, it was ...

, in

Algarve The Algarve (, , ; from ) is the southernmost NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities ( ''concelhos'' or ''municípios'' in Portuguese). The region has it ...

region, Portugal. In Roman times it was in the colony of Ipses, in the Roman province of Lusitania, which was authorized to mint currency, and where a woman named Pompeia Exoce looked after the burial of her grandson. Portimão, to east-southeast, known as Portus Magnus at the time, was an important Roman commercial port when the Roman villa was built. The complex is located on a south-facing promontory spur located between Mexilhoeira Grande and Alvor. The spur lies about eight meters above sea level and is surrounded by the rivers Ribeira do Farelo and Ribeira de Senhora do Verde (Ribeira da Torre), which flow into the Ria de Alvor immediately south. The building, classified as a villa maritima, is characterized by its sophisticated architecture with two

peristyle In ancient Greek and Roman architecture, a peristyle (; from Greek ) is a continuous porch formed by a row of columns surrounding the perimeter of a building or a courtyard. Tetrastoön ( grc, τετράστῳον or τετράστοον, lit=f ...

s – one hexagonal and the other square-shaped. The villa contained well-preserved geometrically-shaped polychrome mosaics (now in the museum of Portimão) and is believed to date from the 4th century AD. The hill itself was inhabited from the 1st to the 5th century AD and has supplied Roman artefacts from the 1st century to the 2nd century.

The villa and its wealth

The protected site is that of a villa rustica or agricultural facility consisting of a large (the villa covers an area of approx. 2000 m²) palatial residence the ''villa maritima'' or ''pars urbana'', and a ''pars rustica'' or economic area. This building had a Mediterranean-style rigorously geometric architecture that related to the landscape - the attached portico (area D) opened to a view of the lagoon and the sea- and also to the mild climate to create an environment of architectural quality for its inhabitants. Mosaics, with floral and geometric compositions of diverse colors, covered the floors of the rooms. Since there was little agricultural area in the direct vicinity, the villa took its wealth from the nearby estuary. In 1938 the archaeologist José Formosinho Sanches (1938) found the remains of the pars rustica including large basins which were used to process offshore seafood twenty meters south of the villa. A pier and dock allowed navigable access to the estuary and the sea. The high density of Post-Tartessos Iron Age sites in the area and the Copper age site of Alcalar indicates a settlement continuity of the indigenous population in the areas used in Roman times. The rich biodiversity of the estuary and lagoons explains this. Fish, shellfish, crabs, and once abundant birds sustained high human populations and in the 4th century allowed large scale commercial exploitation.

The mosaics

Mosaic floors were found in almost all rooms in the areas A and B. On a layer of opus caementitium magnificent patterns were laid from

tesserae A tessera (plural: tesserae, diminutive ''tessella'') is an individual tile, usually formed in the shape of a square, used in creating a mosaic. It is also known as an abaciscus or abaculus. Historical tesserae The oldest known tessera ...

. The mosaics are polychrome and show geometric and floral patterns. But also vessels are depicted. The tesserae of different types of stone are in grey, red, white and blue.

Artefacts

The finds excavated in the 1930s are in the Museum Municipal Dr José Formosinho in

Lagos Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national capital of Nigeria until December 1991 fo ...

. They consist mainly of metal artefacts such as lead and bronze objects. Due to the lack of stratification, the finds unfortunately do not give a meaningful overview. Later finds include tools of the fishing industry,

cosmetics Cosmetics are constituted mixtures of chemical compounds derived from either natural sources, or synthetically created ones. Cosmetics have various purposes. Those designed for personal care and skin care can be used to cleanse or protect ...

a glass plate with a collar edge (1st century AD) and few pieces of utility ceramics and amphorae dating to the middle imperial period and coins from later settlement phases, including two from the Constantinian period and coinage from the Theodosian period. The findings also included fish sauce

garum Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was used as a condiment in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage and later Byzantium. Liquamen is a similar preparation, and at times they were synonymous. Although garum enjoyed its gre ...

and fish salting basins ( cetariae ) bordered with opus caementitium. This allows conclusions to be drawn on the marketing of maritime resources and underpins the classification as villa maritima.

Protection

Villa Romana da Abicada is listed as a National Monument (Monumento Nacional pelo Decreto n.º 35 817, publicado no Diário do Governo, 1.ª série, n.º 187 de 20 de agosto de 1946.)

References

Felix Teichner: Papers on Hispania (academia.edu)
*Santos, Maria Luísa Estácio da Veiga Affonso dos (1972). ''Roman Archeology of the Algarve''. Lisbon: Association of Portuguese Archaeologists, vol. 1, p. 406.

External links