The opus sectile of the curia of Ilipa (Alcalá del Río, Seville) : considerations on the use of stone in public architecture from roman Baetica

Abstract

This paper tries to deep into the analysis of the Roman opus sectile pavement coming from the recently identified building as the curia of the ancient town of Ilipa (Alcalá del Río, Seville), excavated during 2006. Although in most of cases the information about the old town comes from preventive archaeological interventions, we actually have an increasing amount of data useful for the reconstruction of the urban body and the characterization of different constructive phases. The present building can be identified as a part of the forum area, as other spaces, probably collegia seats, which also exhibit rich opera sectilia and mosaics. This study will complete the first notices attending the architecture of the present building. It will focus on morphological, technique and stylistic details of the pavement, whose optimus preservation allowed reconstructing the compositive schema, respectign the standardized measure of Roman foot. All those aspects will contribute to offer new data concerning functionality and datation on the whole. Last essential goal to achieve will be the characterization of the materials employed in the pavement construction, with a special focus on Sintra marmor, which had not previously been object of petrographical analysis. This approach enables us to present an historical contextualization about exploitation and use of local stone at an early moment of the monumentalization process of Roman cities of the south Iberian Peninsula.