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The palatial Late Antique
Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...
at La Olmeda is situated in Pedrosa de la Vega in the province of Palencia (
Castile and León Castile and León ( es, Castilla y León ; ast-leo, Castiella y Llión ; gl, Castela e León ) is an autonomous community in northwestern Spain. It was created in 1983, eight years after the end of the Francoist regime, by the merging of th ...
,
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...
), near the banks of the Carrión. Long known as the provenance of chance finds, it was finally professionally excavated from 1968, and was declared a ''
Bien de Interés Cultural A Bien de Interés Cultural is a category of the heritage register in Spain. The term is also used in Venezuela and other Spanish-speaking countries. The term literally means a "good of cultural interest" (" goods" in the economic sense) and incl ...
'', 3 April 1996. The site was donated in 1984 to the Diputación de Palencia by its proprietor and discoverer, Javier Cortes Álvarez de Miranda, who had supported the archaeological investigation of the site from 1969 to 1980. It is open to the public, while a museum dedicated to the finds is housed in the nearby church of San Pedro de Saldaña. The agrarian villa was developed in several stages, from the first to the third century AD, with major reconstruction in the fourth century and extending in use at least to the end of the fifth. The villa complex centers on the elite quarters of rigorously symmetrical disposition, wherein twenty-seven rooms, twelve with mosaic floors, are disposed around a central patio crossed with mosaic paths in geometric patterns and linked round its perimeter by a wide
peristyle In ancient Greek and Roman architecture, a peristyle (; from Greek ) is a continuous porch formed by a row of columns surrounding the perimeter of a building or a courtyard. Tetrastoön ( grc, τετράστῳον or τετράστοον, lit=f ...
. This main building housed the ''poentior'', with its ''
oecus ''Oecus'' is the Latinized form of Greek ''oikos'', used by Vitruvius for the principal hall or salon in a Roman house, which was used occasionally as a triclinium for banquets. When of great size it became necessary to support its ceiling with c ...
'' or reception hall, centered in the east wing featuring a particularly resplendent
mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...
floor. Slightly raised semicircular
apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...
s mark its northeastern and northwestern end rooms. The main body of the villa communicated with a baths by a grand passageway. The principal front of the main block faces south, with a porticoed gallery ending in octagonal tower blocks. The residential quarters face north with two rectangular corner towers. The complex also included working and living quarters of more rustic aspect, kilns for baking roof tiles on the site, three burial grounds, and a section of paved roadway.A.Álvarez, J. Antonio, "La villa romana de ;La Olmeda' y su museo monográfico"
/ref> File:La Olmeda 2009.jpg, The protective housing, designed by
Ángela García de Paredes Ángela García de Paredes Falla (born 1958) is a Spanish architect. She founded the Paredes Pedrosa studio together with Ignacio García Pedrosa. Biography De Paredes was born in Madrid in 1958. She is the daughter of architect and María Is ...
and Ignacio García-Pedrosa File:Villa Romana La Olmeda 017 Pedrosa De La Vega - Saldaña (Palencia).JPG, Storing area at Roman villae of La Olmeda File:Ancient Roman thermae Villa Romana La Olmeda 003 Pedrosa De La Vega - Saldaña (Palencia).JPG, Thermae at La Olmeda File:VillaRomanaLaOlmeda 008 PedrosaDeLaVega(Palencia).jpg, The hunt mosaic from La Olmeda File:Villa Romana de La Olmeda Mosaicos romanos 001 Ulises.jpg, Mosaic depicting
Odysseus Odysseus ( ; grc-gre, Ὀδυσσεύς, Ὀδυσεύς, OdysseúsOdyseús, ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; lat, UlyssesUlixes), is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the ''Odyssey''. Odys ...


See also

*
Fuentes Tamáricas The Fontes Tamarici, in Spanish ''Fuentes Tamáricas'' (English: ''Tamaric Fountains'') are three springs located by the geographer and Roman historian Pliny the Elder in classical Cantabria. Since the 18th century they have been identified w ...


Notes

{{coord, 42, 28, 54, N, 4, 44, 11, W, type:landmark_source:kolossus-eswiki, display=title Archaeological sites in Castile and León Bien de Interés Cultural landmarks in the Province of Palencia Roman villas in Spain