Posted on 07/31/2026 12:59:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Archaeologists have identified the oldest known library on the Iberian Peninsula inside a Roman villa in southern Spain, overturning decades of belief that the room was a sanctuary dedicated to the Roman god Mithras.
The discovery was made at the Roman villa of Fuente Álamo in Puente Genil, in Spain's Córdoba province. Researchers concluded the room served as a space for reading, study, and preserving written works, making it the westernmost known library in the Roman Empire and one of its best-preserved private examples.
The room contains several architectural features typical of Roman libraries, including an apse, rectangular niches that likely held wooden bookshelves, semicircular niches, a raised podium, and adjoining rooms believed to have been used for storage or scholarly work.
Together, these features allowed researchers to identify the room as a library despite the loss of books and wooden furnishings over nearly 2,000 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at greekreporter.com ...
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The Roman villa of Fuente Álamo.Credit: Rafael Jiménez / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0
Thanks for the link!
Interesting.
You scroll is overdue for 2000 years. Your fine is MMMXXXVIV Dinari............
I’m sure that the Moors will enjoy visiting the site and destroying it to build a mosque or something.
I got News 📰📰📰 for ya Joy Boy
The Dewey Decimal System
What a scam that was!
They figured out that it was a library when they found a sign that said: Silentium.
Donde established la biblioteca?
Researchers also proposed a possible connection between the library and the Declamatio sarcophagus, a Roman stone coffin discovered in the 19th century at the nearby Villares del Carril archaeological site. The sarcophagus, now housed in the Museum of Málaga, depicts scenes of reading and teaching. One carved figure holding both a scroll and a codex closely resembles a figure shown in a mosaic at Fuente Álamo that earlier studies identified as the villa's owner. Although the connection remains unproven, researchers said the similarities suggest the sarcophagus could depict the owner of the library. If correct, it would provide rare evidence that wealthy landowners in the Roman province of Baetica valued education, literature and intellectual identity.X
Silentium...
Clever comment there, Verginius Rufus!
A liberry! So that’s why the Moroccans are invading Spain by the thousands today.
Was it LGBTWXYZ friendly?
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