La Almoina Archaeological Museum: Valencia’s Roman and Medieval Urban Remains
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval
- Civilizations
- Roman, Visigothic
- Site type
- Museum
On this page25 sections
History
La Almoina Archaeological Museum in Spain, in Valencia, preserves the remains of the Roman city of Valentia, founded in 138 BC, together with evidence of later Visigothic, Islamic, and medieval development. The complex traces the urban history of Valencia from the Roman period through the fourteenth century and occupies the area of the ancient civic center associated with Decimus Junius Brutus.
The foundation and destruction of Valentia
Valentia Edetanorum was established in 138 BC on a previously unoccupied river island near the sea. Its first settlers were veterans of Rome’s wars against Viriathus, a Lusitanian leader who resisted Roman expansion in Hispania. Many came from central and southern Italy. Granting them land helped Rome control and defend the territory while creating a bridgehead for further conquest.
The first city was destroyed and abandoned in 75 BC during the Sertorian Wars, a Roman civil conflict in which supporters of Quintus Sertorius fought the forces of the Roman government. The destruction was carried out by the general Pompey. Up to 17 executed soldiers were found with numerous weapons, providing evidence of the violence that ended the settlement’s first phase.
Human activity resumed at an uncertain point between 5 BC and AD 5, near the end of the reign of Augustus. The refoundation included a collective ritual banquet. Its vessels and food remains were placed in the well of the earlier sanctuary, where the burned remains were later covered with a substantial layer of earth.
Roman imperial development
During the Roman imperial period, Valentia became a Roman colony, a formally established settlement with recognized civic status within the imperial system. It acquired major civic, religious, commercial, and administrative facilities. Together with Saguntum, it became one of the principal urban centers of the region.
The city’s civic heart developed around a large forum, the central public square of a Roman town. The curia, where the municipal senate met, and the basilica, a building used for commercial, judicial, and civic purposes, formed part of this public complex. Religious buildings, streets, baths, storage facilities, and commercial premises expanded the city’s functions during the first centuries of the Roman Empire.
The Via Augusta, built in the first century AD, followed the route of the city’s north-south street. This major road connected Gades with Rome along the eastern side of the Iberian Peninsula. The Roman urban center therefore served both local civic needs and wider communications across the region.
Christian and Visigothic Valencia
After the Roman Empire declined in the fifth century, Valentia came under Visigothic rule. Much of the Roman street plan and some Roman buildings remained in use, but the area developed into an episcopal complex centered on a cathedral. Churches, palaces, cemeteries, and reused Roman structures surrounded it.
The city was largely depopulated during the early medieval period but continued as an episcopal seat. In the sixth century, Bishop Justinian undertook a major urban program that included a Visigothic cathedral and baptistery. A baptistery was a building or installation used for Christian baptism.
According to tradition, the deacon Saint Vincent was martyred in Valencia in AD 304. His veneration influenced the later Christian development of the area. In the seventh century, a commemorative church was built over the supposed place of his martyrdom, and the surrounding ground was used as a cemetery in later centuries.
Islamic and medieval transformations
Muslims conquered Valencia in the eighth century. The area later became part of an eleventh-century alcazar, a fortified palace or seat of government in the medieval Islamic and Christian Iberian worlds. The city experienced renewed urban development during the Islamic period.
King James I of Aragon conquered Valencia in 1238 and redistributed houses among new Christian settlers. The site later took the name Almoina from a charitable institution founded there in 1303 by Bishop Ramón Despont. An almoina provided alms and assistance to poor people, first through food and later through monetary aid.
The institution moved its headquarters in 1314 to a house owned by Bernat Desclapers near the cathedral. From the mid-fourteenth century, its hall for the poor was used as a school of grammar and theology. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the building also served as a prison for refugees protected by ecclesiastical immunity. It was demolished around the turn of the twentieth century.
Excavation and museum formation
The remains came to light during preparations to expand the adjacent basilica. When that project was halted, the City Council of Valencia acquired the land, and archaeological work continued from 1985 to 2005. Study and conservation followed, and the complex was converted into an archaeological museum that opened in 2007.
The museum has an archaeological surface of approximately 2,500 square metres. Its legal status includes recognition as a heritage property of cultural interest and as a locally relevant heritage property in Valencia. These designations accompany a site whose archaeological sequence preserves the changing urban form of the city from the second century BC to the fourteenth century.
Remains
The archaeological complex lies beneath the Plaza de la Almoina, on the site of the ancient Roman plaza. A glass structure covers the excavated remains while keeping them visually connected with the surrounding urban landscape. Streets, public buildings, religious installations, storage facilities, workshops, burials, and medieval structures occupy the excavated area. The museum also presents inscriptions, detached architectural elements, more than 1,000 coins, and more than 500 ceramic remains.
Early Roman streets and ritual foundations
Cardo and decumanus
The original Roman street plan was organized around the cardo maximus, running from north to south, and the decumanus maximus, running from east to west. These two principal streets formed the framework of the early city and met near its foundation area. The Via Augusta later followed the line of the cardo maximus, while the decumanus maximus led toward the forum and eastward to the circus. The Via Augusta was paved with large slabs laid over the principal sewer.
Foundation well and sanctuary
A well 3.29 metres deep contained a probable foundation offering connected with the construction of the two principal streets. Its contents included cooking pots, casseroles, mortars, tableware, and vessels for wine, oil, fish sauce, and possibly beer. Young-animal bones from pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, and roosters were also present. The material had been burned and then covered with a thick layer of earth after a ritual banquet.
The early Roman sanctuary included a pool associated with water deities and possibly dedicated to Asclepius, the Greek and Roman god of healing and medicine. Dating to the second century BC, it later developed into an imperial nymphaeum, a monumental public fountain associated with water deities. Water flowed through several outlets into a narrow, elongated basin.
Roman public and administrative buildings
Granary
The early Roman horreum, or public granary, stored grain and other essential supplies. Constructed from large sandstone blocks, it occupied an entire urban block and measured approximately 24 metres on each side. The original building contained four large halls. Only part survives, with its rear section visible in the museum.
Baths
The Roman baths are among the oldest known on the Iberian Peninsula. Their earliest phase was smaller and simpler, although it was already built with stone and other durable materials. Public rooms had ceramic-tile pavements, and detached benches were probably used for oil and ointment massages before bathers cleaned themselves with a strigil, a curved tool for scraping the body. Water came from the well in the northern part of the complex. The baths were later remodeled and enlarged during the imperial period.
Forum
The imperial forum, dating from the first century AD, lay directly beneath the Plaza de la Almoina and covered approximately 6,900 square metres. It was a rectangular public square enclosed by porticoes reached by a staircase. A temple stood on one of the short sides, while civic buildings opened along the porticoes.
Curia
The first-century curia had a quadrangular plan and a foundation of large limestone blocks. Its concrete walls were probably faced with marble slabs, and its floor used opus signinum, a Roman material made from mortar mixed with crushed ceramic. A poorly preserved neighboring building has been interpreted, with some uncertainty, as a second curia, possibly reflecting a double senate at Valentia. Pedestals and inscriptions from the first and second centuries AD were found nearby.
Basilica
The basilica was a rectangular public building divided into three aisles by rows of columns. The central aisle was wider and higher than the two side aisles. Its Aedes Augusti served as a courtroom and contained a statue of the emperor Augustus. Other surviving elements include a pedestal dedicated to Fortuna, the Roman goddess associated with fate and fortune, and another dedicated to the veteran Valentini.
Commercial and commemorative remains
Food-processing establishment
A small food-processing establishment dated to the third century AD faced the cardo maximus. Its rooms were arranged around an open courtyard containing a basin. A large room on the western side held a pressing installation. Amphorae collapsed across its pavement had contained products including oil, wine, and garum, a fermented fish sauce widely used in Roman cuisine. A room beneath the apse has been interpreted, with some uncertainty, as a prison associated with the martyrdom of Saint Vincent.
Burial
The Visigothic phase includes a double burial containing a couple interred with grave goods. These included a gold ring, three belt buckles, two small ceramic objects, and two blown-glass objects. The burial belongs to the Christian and episcopal transformation of the former Roman urban area.
Visigothic religious complex
Baptistery
The baptistery dates to the middle of the sixth century and lay beneath the present structure. It probably had a cruciform plan and was built with substantial walls made from reused Roman ashlar. A drainage channel in its northern wall sloped toward the street and ended near a small fountain or basin. Worshippers could collect blessed water there.
Commemorative church
A horseshoe-shaped apse was built in the seventh century over the supposed site of Saint Vincent’s martyrdom. It is the surviving testimony of the small commemorative church traditionally associated with that place. The surrounding area later served as a cemetery.
Islamic and medieval structures
Alcazar complex
The Islamic phase includes part of an eleventh-century alcazar wall, together with remains of a waterwheel. A courtyard with a washing installation also belonged to the palace complex. These features represent the later Islamic occupation and redevelopment of the earlier Roman and Visigothic urban area.
Almoina building
The medieval Almoina building had a single nave running north to south across the plot. Several buttresses and supports for arches formed part of its structure. Excavation recovered numerous ceramic remains dating from the fourteenth century, the period when the charitable institution’s headquarters and its hall for the poor were associated with the site.
