Badalona Museum: Preserving Iberian Funerary Stelae from Baitolo and Baetulo
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Spain
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical
- Civilizations
- Iberian, Roman
- Site type
- Burial
- Remains
- Tomb
On this page8 sections
History
Badalona Museum in Spain preserves three Iberian funerary stelae dating broadly from 150 to 75 BC, a period associated with the final occupation of Baitolo and the foundation of the Roman city of Baetulo in the early first century BC. The monuments are important examples of the small group of Iberian stelae preserved in Catalonia, where only eight are known to survive.
From Baitolo to Baetulo
Baitolo was an Iberian settlement on Turó d’en Boscà, at an elevation of 198 metres. Its name is known from Iberian coin inscriptions and is regarded as the predecessor of the Latin name Baetulo. In the early first century BC, the Romans established Baetulo on the plain, on the smaller Turó d’en Rosés, where the Maresme branch of the Via Augusta passed. The Roman settlement corresponds to the modern Dalt de la Vila area.
After Baetulo was founded, the Iberian settlement was gradually abandoned, and its material was probably reused in construction. The two stelae discovered beneath Font i Cusó Square had themselves probably been moved for reuse shortly after the Roman city was established. Their treatment reflects a practical approach to earlier monuments: although they were funerary markers probably only slightly more than 50 years old, they were cut down and used as covers for a Roman sewer.
The original cemetery of the three monuments remains uncertain. They may have come from the Iberian necropolis of Baitolo, from a later cemetery combining Iberian and Roman features near a communication route, or from a military recruitment camp. All three were found outside their original settings, in areas containing Roman remains. The Can Peixau stele came from land where a Roman villa had stood, while the other two were incorporated into infrastructure beneath Baetulo’s main urban street.
Discovery and museum history
The Can Peixau stele, also called the Llefià stele, was found in 1929 in the Llefià area. It had been reused as a bench at the entrance to the former Can Peixau farmhouse. The monument was transferred to the Museum of the Badalona Hiking Association and later deposited in the Provincial Archaeological Museum after that museum was looted in 1940. It returned to Badalona Museum in 1980.
Can Peixau farmhouse was demolished in 1957. The surrounding archaeological area contained an aristocratic Roman villa with rural or agricultural facilities, together with several Roman funerary monuments. The two other stelae were found much later, in July 2000, during excavations in the forum area of Baetulo beneath Font i Cusó Square.
The two Baetulo inscriptions share a personal name. This has led to the supposition that the monuments belonged to a father and son, an otherwise unique case among the group. Their differing inscriptions may indicate some Latinization between generations, even though the Iberian language and script continued to be used. Iberian script has been deciphered, but the language is only partly understood, so readings of names and formulas are more secure than some grammatical interpretations.
Remains
Iberian funerary markers
The three objects are stone stelae, or funerary markers, bearing the deceased’s names in northeastern Iberian script. Iberian communities commonly cremated their dead, and in a formal burial rite the remains were placed in an urn with personal objects and marked by a decorated stele. These monuments were originally set above burial mounds made from earth and stones. Two carry symbolic decoration, while all three preserve evidence of the naming practices associated with Iberian burial.
Can Peixau stele
The Can Peixau stele has an inscription in its upper section. Beneath it, a framed panel contains three vertical spears and a swastika on the right. A crescent moon and a six-pointed rosette above a recessed circle occupy the lower part. The first sign of the inscription is poorly preserved, although the reading akanos is accepted. The name has been analyzed as comprising the elements aka and nos, possibly variants of aker and nios.
The spear motif appears on three other Catalan stelae and on numerous examples in Lower Aragon. The spears are schematic, arranged vertically and parallel rather than representing a specific weapon. Their decoration has been associated with warrior burials, although the uncertain original location of the Can Peixau stele prevents a definitive interpretation. The crescent may relate to an Iberian deity and, in a funerary context, symbolize the cycle of life. The swastika is understood as a solar symbol, while the rosette or radiating disk may represent a shield, a floral design, or, more probably here, an astral symbol.
Baetulo stelae
Baetulo Stele 1 preserves a two-line inscription made with deep but irregular incisions. It is read as ḿlbebiuŕar·ḿi, interpreted as the personal name ḿlbebiuŕ followed by a suffixal group that may have a dative or genitive meaning, producing the sense “for or of Nalbebiur.” The surviving portion is undecorated, and the broken upper section leaves open the question of whether decoration once appeared there.
Baetulo Stele 2 carries a more complex four-line inscription, read as bantuin ḿi·ḿl bebiuŕe banen. It is segmented as bantuinḿi ḿlbebiuŕ ebanen and interpreted as “for or of Bantui, the son of Nalbebiur.” The repeated name links it to Stele 1, while the parentage formula identifies the individual through his relationship to his father. A suffix or formula of this kind functioned in a similar way to the Latin expression filius, meaning “son.”
Stele 2 has a low relief of five vertical spears in its upper third, with the inscription occupying the lower two-thirds. Only one spear retains its point. The other four were probably damaged when the monument was shortened for reuse in the Roman sewer. The spear arrangement has sometimes been connected with an Iberian funerary practice described by Aristotle, in which spears were raised around a warrior’s tomb. The number on a stele need not represent enemies defeated or battles won, and may instead have depended on the space available for decoration.
Roman sewer reuse
The two Baetulo stelae measured 90 centimetres and 142 centimetres in length before being shortened to fit the width of the sewer. They were found side by side between large stone slabs and held in position by smaller stones. The sewer was 80 centimetres wide and 90 centimetres deep, ran beneath the cardo maximus, the principal street of a Roman town, and was covered by large stone slabs.
At Baetulo, the street was oriented perpendicular to the coastline and used the 20-metre slope of Turó d’en Rosés for the water-collection system. The stelae therefore survive not only as Iberian funerary monuments but also as altered elements of Roman urban infrastructure. Their inscriptions are catalogued in Jürgen Untermann’s Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum as C.8.1, C.8.10, and C.8.11. The catalogue references identify the Catalan coastal region, the Baetulo group, and the sequential order of the finds.
