Universidad de Sevilla

Graduate Student, Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueología

Thesis Title: The origins of Christianity in Roman Baetica: the archaeological evidence. Architecture, Decorative Sculpture and Liturgy

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As part of our doctoral thesis, which deals with the architecture and the urbanism of Baetica in Late Antiquity, we have created a catalogue of the architectural, sculptural and liturgical remains kept in the Andalusia's Museums. These materials had the appeal of a great typological and functional diversity, as well as the record of provenance in most cases, which enabled us to relate them (in so far as possible) with the known buildings of the period, most of which were not excavated following modern methods. However, most of these elements, brought to the museums from old excavations, had the inconvenient of the lack of archaeological context, thus their datation depended largely on stylistic aspects given the absence in most cases of external references that could objectively confirm a chronology. This led us to test a new method for the datation of these pieces, based on the comparative evolution of the decoration of inscriptions (mainly funerary) that included a date, thus enabling us to create a general scheme with which to compare the carving techniques, the decorative styles and the iconographic motives. Once established the general chronological framework, we approached the typological study of the pieces, always from the perspective of their possible function within the architecture of the period. Finally, the topographic location of the elements under study enabled their contextualisation alongside the known architectures, thus allowing us to generate –while waiting for more information based on the publication of recent excavations– an image of the cities that helps to understand its evolution and transformations between the 4th and 8th century AD.

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