2,000 years ago they wanted to build a temple to the goddess Minerva in Cuenca. They ended up doing it in the most unlikely place
In a quarry one expects to basically find workers, machinery and stacked blocks. It is like this today and it was probably like this (with obvious differences) in times of the Roman Empire, when the stonemasons of Hispania dug in the mountains and caves of the peninsula in search of deposits. In a quarry exploited between the 1st and 4th centuries AD in Cuenca, archaeologists have however found Anything else: a temple of 2,000 years dedicated to Minerva. From a simple quarry to a temple. What has happened? that archaeologists have found a fascinating find in Carrascosa del Campo, in the municipality of Campos del Paraíso (Cuenca): a temple dedicated to the goddess Minerva. The discovery is interesting because of the value of the carving itself, but what makes it really special is its context. The aedicula It was not erected in the center of a city, the courtyard of a wealthy villa or on the walls of a sanctuary. The votive piece was carved into the rock of a quarry. Its creators carved it in front of the site, a place where it was surely easier to meet stonemasons than priests. What is the sanctuary like? The temple is located in a place known as Peña de la Saceda and experts estimate that it was carved between mid-2nd century and early 3rd century AD The complex is made up of pilasters, capitals, a triangular pediment and a carved entablature, which imitates a small sanctuary. Although the representation of the goddess Minerva has been greatly deteriorated over the centuries, experts have identified her traditional attributes (helmet, spear and peplum) and an owl, an icon used as a symbol of the goddess. Do we know anything else? “There is barely a glimpse of the goddess Minerva. What can be clearly seen is an owl, which is the totemic bird that represents Minera,” explains in the SER Juan Carlos Guisado di Monti, one of the archaeologists who signed the article from the magazine Mantva in which the discovery was revealed. The relief is accompanied by a brief inscription at the bottom of the aedicula, in which can be read: “Minervae dominae Ploti vs cun svo comitato”, that is to say: “To Minerva Domina, (dedicated) Plotius Vigor with his retinue.” And where did they find it? That’s the key. The temple, 0.7 m wide by 0.5 m high, was conceived as “a small facade carved directly into one of the stone fronts of the quarry.” Its authors carved the complex out of sandstone rock, and they did so in the quarry itself, not in a remote space. This is not a minor detail, since it tells us about a connection between the profane and the sacred, how a quarry, an a priori functional space focused on work, could also acquire a sacred meaning with a sanctuary dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, arts, strategy and craftsmanship. Is it something unique? “There are other temples dedicated to gods in other quarries, but in Spain until now none dedicated to Minerva had been discovered. This is the most important and surprising discovery, because it suggests that the quarry workers made their ‘votes’ to the goddess, for the work they were doing,” details in elDiario Dionisio Urbina, who has directed the excavations at the Roman site for more than a decade. Equally relevant is the brief inscription located at the bottom of the temple and which includes the formula “cum suo comitato”which suggests to archaeologists that the offering was not individual, but rather came from a group. What were the quarries? The temple was located just 15 km from Segóbrigaan important deposit that includes a theater inaugurated in the time of Emperor Vespasian, in the 1st century AD. As the authors of the study recall, the area was also known for the mines of lapis specularisa selenite gypsum stone highly appreciated in Rome for the manufacture of windows and whose exploitation generated wealth in the region. Now the temple discovered in Carrascosa del Campo reveals something else to us: the veneration of Minerva. “The rock sanctuary of Minerva constitutes a find of special value. The old quarry, transformed into a place of devotion, shows how the Roman religion was not only expressed in the large urban or peri-urban sanctuaries, but also in rural and productive enclaves where the community, the workers or their promoters sought protection and left both their veneration of the goddess and the memory of their vow inscribed in the rock,” they conclude the researchers. The discovery, yes, has come accompanied by some controversy. After the news circulated in recent days in general media, the director of the Cerro de la Muela excavation recalled that the work is still “in progress” and regretted what he considers an “unauthorized dissemination” of the results. Images | Government of Castilla-La Mancha and Wikipedia In Xataka | In 1778 Mozart attempted to teach composition to a French noblewoman. It didn’t go well at all, but thanks to her we now have unpublished works
