A discoid stele from the M\u00e9rtola Museum collection
\nMiguel Serra
\nArchaeologist\/Senior Technician of the Serpa City Council\/CEAACP<\/p>\n
The Main Church\/Mosque of M\u00e9rtola was the subject of restoration works in the 1940s, which allowed identifying the countless transformations experienced in this space. The demolitions carried out at the time revealed an important set of reused elements, such as Roman tombstones and medieval funerary stelae, among others, which are clear testimonies of the continuous changes it underwent.
\nOf the small set of five discoid stelae or tombstones, generically attributed to the Christian medieval period, we highlight one in particular.
\nIt is a stele with a cruciform motif on the front and a circular motif on the back, with the upper part shaped as a disk and the lower part shaped as a spike so as to be anchored to the ground.
\nIt is complete and in relatively good condition, just showing some flaws due to chipping at the top of the edge of the side that bears a cruciform motif and some traces of mortar, possibly resulting from its reuse as construction material.
\nIt was made from a block of marble and bears the Greek cross on one side, in relief, with crossed arms and a radially engraved border. On the other side it has two concentric motifs, the inside of which is defined by an engraved circumference and the outside by a lowered circular crown. It is the only specimen identified in Portuguese territory with these characteristics.
\nThe fact that it was reused in the structure of the Main Church of M\u00e9rtola does not allow us to confirm its provenance with certainty, but it is perfectly possible for it to have been part of the 14th\/15th centuries’ Christian necropolis in the surroundings of the church, which was later desacralized and its tombstones used as construction materials during renovation activities.
\nThe stele is currently in the Museum Centre of the Main Church of M\u00e9rtola together with other specimens of different typologies, which attest to the immense variety of tombstones in M\u00e9rtola’s territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Main Church\/Mosque of M\u00e9rtola was the subject of restoration works in the 1940s, which allowed identifying the countless transformations experienced in this space. The demolitions carried out at the time revealed an important set of reused elements, such as Roman tombstones and medieval funerary stelae, among others, which are clear testimonies of the continuous changes it underwent. Ler mais A discoid stele from the M\u00e9rtola Museum collection<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[131],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}