A ROMAN VILLA AND THE MAGNA MATER

 There is a new museum in Las Cuevas de Soria of an authentic Roman villa fom the IV century AD.

It was discovered and excavated between 1927 and 1928 and used to belong to a Hispano Romano family of Celtiberian origin.

Now you can see how it had a central garden patio and 30 rooms decorated with mosaics. There were baths and lots of mosaic floors. The mosaics were made from local limestone and mostly in geometrical designs. A person who made these mosaics was called a Musivario.

Also in this museum there is a part that talks about the Earth Goddesses throughout history and especially the Magna Mater who was known as the goddess Cibeles. (There is a statue of her in Madrid!)

We were in the first group to have a tour of this new museum. 

 The above photo is of the baths and below is a collection of different mosaic floors.

 Here you can see the monogram of the family name - Irrico  It is like a symbol that puts all the letters of the name together. You have to look carefully but you can see it in the bottom left symbol in the above photo.

These stones show the kinds of limestone they used to make the mosaics.

A MUSEUM AND A CELTIBERIAN VILLAGE

In Soria, we went to a museum in Garray where there is a lot of local Celtiberian and Roman history.

In this photo you can see a battering ram they used to knock down fortress doors. 

This is a Roman military camp.

 

These figures are cute. 

 Then we went to Numancia where there is a village of Celtiberian origins. The Celtiberians fought against the Romans for 20 years before the Romans finally took the village. Then they built their own houses on top of the other one.

 This is a circular rainwater cistern for public use.

 These are hand querns used for milling the grain. They made beer from fermented wheat.

 This one is a Roman house. It has a roof of rye sheaves.

 These are looms for weaving cloth.

 These photos are of a Celtiberian house with a Celtic symbol on the door and the kitchen.