Jacobo Storch. Professor of Archaeology. UCM.

UNED Summer Course. “Roma vivet: Inheritance and survival of ancient Rome”.

The town of Medellín in Badajoz is currently one of the most important archaeological sites in Extremadura. The first archaeological excavation campaign was carried out in 1969. Since then, considerable progress has been made in the knowledge of the diachrony of occupation of this enclave, with prehistoric, Oriental, Roman, Muslim, Christian and modern-contemporary remains being documented. The archaeological work carried out in recent years has made it possible to transform the abandoned ruins of the Roman theatre of Metellinum into one of the main monuments of this autonomous community. Also, the declaration of Medellín as an Asset of Cultural Interest has made it necessary to carry out archaeological interventions in the works being carried out in that town, and this has made it possible to locate other important archaeological remains of which their existence was unknown.

Miguel Ángel Novillo López. Assistant Professor of the Department of Ancient History. UNED.

UNED Summer Course. “Roma vivet: Inheritance and survival of ancient Rome”.

The Roman villa of Noheda is located in the town of Villar de Domingo García (Cuenca-Spain). Among its structures is the imposing triclinium of trichora morphology, which measures 290.64 m2. It is in this room that an exceptional mosaic has been preserved, measuring 231.62 m2, made mostly with opus vermiculatum based on tesserae of up to 1.5 mm in a very varied chromatic range.
The ornamental morphology of this floor consists, on the one hand, of a large rectangular area that fits the main space of the room, where more than a hundred figures – some life-size – are profusely arranged in scenic groups, distributed in the space between a wide band of acanthus leaves and the fountain that occupies the centre of the room.
The figurative paintings are arranged in six independent but interrelated rectangular strips, with themes of mythological allegories, depictions of various ludi and allusions to literary and theatrical genres, which underlines their originality.