A Late Antique Rural Community in Mérida

Abstract

This paper presents the contextualized results of the latest excavations at the site of Casa Herrera (Mérida, Spain). Casa Herrera is one of the best examples of a late antique site in the Iberian Peninsula, not only because of the degree of preservation of the remains but also because of its long chronological sequence, which runs from the first to the ninth century. The excavations of the surroundings of the funerary basilica and the Roman aqueduct have unearthed the remains of a handful of buildings that could be linked to a rural monastic community from the late Roman and Visigothic periods. The site has an Umayyad phase where settlement clusters around the basilica before being finally abandoned during the ninth century.