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The unearthed medal table of Augusta Emerita

ANTONIO GILGADO Merida

Eighty pieces of gold, silver or bronze. Amber, jet and other Roman materials trinkets. A jewel box on the ground of the city that the archaeologists of the Consortium have unearthed in more than two decades of excavations. Reflection of how the colony absorbs the Greek or Egyptian influence in the fascination for its amulets and ornaments. Extensive catalog of goldsmithing from the 1st to the 4th century, which the Consortium has called 'The brilliance of appearance'.

Under this title it publishes a detailed catalog of the most representative jewels of the Augusta Emerita. He made a first selection of 165 pieces and then chose eighty. The most representative according to the raw material used. From gold to bone.

Small objects of personal adornment that tell the tastes and fashions of the families that came to the colony. They also hide the symbolic power and the rise of superstitions in the Roman people. They believed that colors (gold, red, blue or green), shapes (snake or crescent) or representations used by the people of the newly conquered territories protected them against envy and the evil eye or helped fertility.

On Safo Street, in Argentina, some gold earrings from the 1st century were found in the shape of a hoop 1.7 centimeters in diameter and hanging. As documented by the Consortium, they belonged to a girl buried in a pit dug in the ground.

As the only funerary object to accompany her on her journey to the afterlife, she carried a ceramic vessel. The ancient Romans kept gold to reward military victories and in the early days of the Empire it was frowned upon outside of this use.

El medallero desenterrado de Augusta Emerita

But with Octavio Augusto (from 27 before our era to 14 after our era) when coming into contact with other cultures and a period of peace, the taste for gold became general, something that was generalized throughout the first century. noticed in the coonia.

In the archaeological intervention of the town of Araya, between Mérida and Esparragalejo, the archaeologists found a box in which the ashes of the owner were deposited together with two gold hook earrings, two rings and a chain with a pendant. The burial was documented during the second half of the 1st century. Gold jewelry had already become a symbol of prestige that liked to be displayed at all social events. In this case, the family considered that the owner of the villa should take her earrings, her rings and her pendants to the afterlife.

Well into the 2nd century, a sample of gold work was unearthed in the excavation of the old Hernán Cortés barracks. From there they have studied a box with a pair of gold earrings with double closure. It is verified that the Romans did not contribute great innovations to the work with this metal. Greek and Etruscan models were followed in the elaboration of the pieces.

In the famous burials of the corralón de los Blanes there is an example from the 3rd or 4th century. Earrings very similar to those of three centuries before. Wealthy women were still buried with their jewelry. Something that stopped with the arrival of Christianity in the city. The fathers of the Christian church wrote against the madness that these jewels aroused.

In silver, the oldest reference was found in excavations in Cape Verde. The earrings from a simple grave on this street are considered to be from the 1st century.

Several investigations into this material have confirmed the fame that silver from Hispania had in the first centuries of the Empire.

Although it was used more for crockery and cult objects, earrings, rings and bracelets have also been found in excavations in the city. In the follow-up made to the Bodegones Sur urbanization, for example, a peri-urban domus was documented in the South Zone of Auguta Emerita from the 1st century in which a woman was buried with a silver ring engraved with the goddesses Fortuna and Ceres. The engravings of these goddesses was a fashion in the second half of the first century in the city.

Bronze was also highly prized in the colony. It is obtained by combining copper and tin and was used by pre-Roman peoples to melt metals at low temperatures. The Romans made from large statues of gods to small objects. In a tomb excavated in a rock on the outskirts of the city, the Consortium found a man who kept between the fingers of his left hand a bronze coin and a ring, also bronze, with a glass cut.

Archaeologists were also struck by the bronze object from the end of the 2nd century or beginning of the 3rd century that was unearthed in the soccer field. It is a kind of key that was hung around the neck. In bronze also the seals that were used to sign public documents and public positions were placed on the fingers. Some examples of these seals were found on Vía de la Plata avenue.

The Romans believed that the heart arose from a nerve that ran directly to the finger closest to the little finger on the left hand. Hence the custom, still in force, of wearing rings on the ring finger. Also pieces of amber, shells and carved stones such as marble have been documented among the ornaments worn by the settlers. Augusta Emerita's medal table was not only limited to gold, plant and bronze.

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