Through various national and regional research projects, the “Ager Mellariensis” team of the University of Cordoba (www.uco.es/mellaria) has documented several kilometres of the great connecting artery between Cordoba and Merida as it passes through the territory of Cordoba and Mellaria.
This road was the evacuation channel for the wealth of the famed gold-producing land of Córdoba. Thus, a series of major and minor settlements and production complexes were set up around its course. We begin to glimpse the structure that allowed the financial power of the capital of Baetica in the powerful mining district of which it was a reference point.

The Roman mining of lapis specularis played an important role in the early Empire, during the 1st and early 2nd centuries AD, among the lapidary materials demanded and incorporated into the architectural programmes implemented, especially in the cities, due to the need for large windows that would allow light and sunlight to pass through, also allowing the exterior to be seen and ensuring climatic comfort. It was at this juncture that specular gypsum made its place as one of the best materials that met the required characteristics, and where the glass mines of Hispania, with greater production, and with a mineral of higher quality and transparency than those of other areas, would impose themselves on the markets, making this resource a versatile and essential product in many of its applications.