page_title: Los Bañales
section_title: The necropolis
hierarchical_section_title: Los Bañales / The necropolis
caption_attribution_description: Español: Cupa dedicada a Chresima por Sempronio Paramithio. CIL II 6338aa = ERZaragoza 28 = HEp 2011, 668 = AE 1977, 475 = AE 2011, 528: D(is) M(anibus) [s(acrum)] / Chresime / Semp(ronius) Paramy/thius uxori / pientissim(a)e / f(aciendum) c(uravit)
context_page_description: Los Bañales is a Roman archaeological site located in the municipality of Uncastillo, in the northwestern part of the province of Zaragoza, Spain. It is located in the region of the Cinco Villas, with extensive occupation before, during, and after the Roman period. The site is a case study for the archaeological study of urbanization, cultural change, imperialism, trade and exchange, landscape, and social history.
  The site consists of a city whose name remains unconfirmed, although it is likely to have been Tarraca. It occupies an area of more than twenty hectares, bounded on the north by a monumental residential space, on the south by two sizeable hills, on the east by the elevated remains of a Roman aqueduct, and on the west by a necropolis. Large monumental thermal baths were constructed at the end of the 1st century CE and an aqueduct transported water to the city from a nearby reservoir. The current name of the site comes from the hermitage of Our Lady of The Baths, which was built within what is now the archaeological area.
  In the early years of work at the site, only the extensive hydraulic system was studied in detail.
context_section_description: Like any Roman city, Los Bañales had its own necropolis. Its remains have been identified to the southwest of what would have been the urban nucleus.
  As a result of the archaeological surveys – excavation has not yet taken place – the necropolis has yielded quadrangular and triangular-headed steles, funerary altars, pedestals and especially cupae.
  The cupae -in Latin, singular cupa, plural cupae- is a peculiar type of funerary monument of an elongated plant with cylindrical cover, imitating a tumbled barrel -in fact, cupa means tonel in Latin-, which were used in some regions of the Roman Empire between the 1st and 3rd centuries and which was exceptionally frequent in this area.  Under their barrel shape they had a hole in which an urn was inserted with the ashes of the deceased. They also had a side holes so that the relatives could make offerings and libations and on one of the sides a commemorative inscription would have been carved.
  The cupae were not only frequent in the necropolis of Los Bañales but also in the villas of the elite. The findings have been increasing in recent years, since the beginning of the revision of the rural territory in 2009. The most recent occurred in the summer of 2015.
caption: Cupa in the necropolis dedicated to Chresima by Sempronius Paramithius.
exif: {}