Archaeology

The finding of the Roman theatre was of great importance for Cartagena, not just from an archaeological point of view, but also from a tourist/social perspective. Finding such an important remain boosted excavations in the city, strengthened the idea of creating a tourist city and enhanced the  festival of Carthaginians and Romans. Its discovery came as a totally unexpected event occurred as the palace of the Countess Peralta was being knocked down. From that moment, a research process began to define the magnitude of the archaeological remains found and the best way to preserve them.

Once they discovered the magnificent state they were in, they decided to keep all of them but in order to do so they had to tear down many of the houses in the surroundings, which belonged to the fishermen’s poor and deteriorated neighbourhood.

Gradually, several remains from houses belonging to this area were found, dating back to the 16th century, as well as coins from the time of Charles III, Philip V and the Catholic Monarchs, walls and other remains from the Islamic population. On the other hand, there were also traces of the devastation suffered with the arrival of the Vandals, as well as remains from the Byzantine houses and a Roman market from the 4th century a.C., which was founded on the theatre.

For the construction of the market they mainly reused most of the elements in the theatre, thanks to which today we still have many columns, bases and capitals, which will allow for the future reconstruction of the theatre using its original architectonic elements. But these are not the only archaeological remains we can find in Cartagena; we can also visit the Punic Wall that was found in 1989 on the southern side of the San José Mountain.

This remain was one of the most important ones provided the few Punic remains discovered in the Mediterranean area, as the Romans hardly used their constructions.It was built by Carthaginians and directed by general Hasdrubal at the end of the 3rd century b.C., as the year established to indicate the foundation of Quart-Hadast (now Cartagena) is 227 b.C.

The wall is formed by two perpendicular walls built in yellow sandstone. The space between the walls was covered by the guards, and it helped them to carry out their surveillance duties.
While the excavation works to discover the wall were being carried out a crypt was found. It belonged to the old San José hermitage, which dates back to the 16th and 19th centuries. This monument has been left intact so that tourists can enjoy the special atmosphere inside it.

In addition to this, the House of Fortune is a remain we can admire and use to learn about what the Roman houses and roads were like. This remain was discovered thanks to a road and two houses found in the basement of a bank, added to another remain found in one of the houses attached, and is included within the Project “Cartagena, Port of Cultures”.

The Decumano (part of a road) in the Tres Reyes Square was discovered and excavated in 1968. For the first time in Cartagena, the semi-basement technique was used, which consisted in preserving the remains found and building on them.
Here we can enter the “Decumano Máximo” of Cartagena, which linked the old port with the forum (centre of Roman social activity). There was also an important shopping area with two small shops or “tabernae”, where one could see what products were for sale, how trade was carried out and other aspects of the every day commercial life in Carthago-Nova.
On the other side of the street we can admire the realism of the Roman baths, which were places not only for relaxation, but also for social relations.

The funeral monument of Torreciega, which dates back to the 1st century b.C., and therefore is the oldest tower in the Iberian Peninsula, was dedicated to Titus Didius, a popular person in the life of Carthago-Nova at the time, and is located in the necropolis built in the outskirts of city, next to the road to today’s Tarragona.

The Byzantine Wall was excavated in 1983 and now there is an exhibition room on it. Originally there were some porticos belonging to a garden behind the stage of the Roman theatre, where Romans talked before and after the shows and during their breaks. Later on, these porticos were used by the Byzantines to build a wall.

Many are the stories about Santa María La Vieja cathedral, such as the legend that is was from here, after arriving at Santa Lucía port, where apostle Santiago started to evangelize the Iberian Peninsula; or even the legend that says this was the first Church and the holy see of the bishopric of Cartagena.

The building used part of the area of the Roman Theatre as a base. Following a passage down to the inside of the Cathedral we will come to a crypt and then a  mosaic dating back to the 1st century b.C. Some elements are preserved from medieval times, such as chapels and arches. In 1571, the Cuatro Santos chapel was built on a Greek cross plan, where the Virgen del Rosell, the patron of Cartagena, was worshipped.

At the end of the 17th century, the Duke of Veragua ordered the construction of the Cristo del Socorro chapel, with a rectangular plan and a dome on scallops. Its last remodelling was designed by architect Víctor Beltrí in 1902, which gave the cathedral a neo-roman style. Unfortunately there are very few remains that we have managed to recover because virtually everything was destroyed during the Civil War.

El Molinete is one of the 5 hills forming a part of Carthago-Nova. The city forum was established there, and we know from the different excavations that have been made in the area that there were several important public buildings in good condition. The most important one discovered until today is the Tríada Capitolina, a temple to worship gods Jupiter, Juno and Minerva that dates back to the 1st century a.C.

In Morería Baja street we will find some columns belonging to a public building, which used to be a part of the portico of the basilica next to the Roman port. In the columns we can see the sedimentation with the aligned columns of a Tuscan style. Next to them some amphorae and coins were discovered, together with other elements that were a part of everyday life in Roman times in the city of Carthago-Nova.

The Augusteum was found during some excavations made in 1991 and has been recently restored and turned into a little museum about the Roman forum. In the archaeological remains we can see the ruins of a school from Augustan times, dating back to the 1st century a.C., where priests used to meet to worship Augustus.

The Concepción castle was built in the 14th century although it is believed that before that it was used to be a fort. Its location and the type of construction makes us think that it has played an important role throughout history.

It stands on one of the 5 hills on which Carthago-Nova was founded. The building used Roman remains such as columns, engravings and tombstones from the Roman amphitheatre and the Antiguones, and it has been recently interpreted that the basements of the building were possibly used in Roman times as tanks from where water was distributed to different areas.

Nowadays we stand before the Centre of Interpretation of the History of Cartagena, where visitors will get the chance to learn about the history of the town and its greatest members.