Villa Romana de El Ruedo

The archaeological site of the Roman villa of El Ruedo is located on the outskirts of the locality of Almedinilla. It is declared a Site of Cultural Interest.

It is divided into two areas: the Roman villa, whose pars urbana (habitable area) is well preserved, and a burial necropolis. The pars rustica of the villa was used for agricultural exploitation.
 

Initially, the Roman villa between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD was modest. However, in the 4th century, it transformed into a large estate with a luxurious aristocratic residential area. From the start, the main building was structured around a central courtyard with a peristyle or columned gallery. The residential area was arranged around a central courtyard with a fountain. Many stuccoes with paintings from the walls and ceilings have been preserved, whose frescoes imitated marble inlays.
 

The Bath Room had a hypocaust heating system underneath the floor. The reception room corresponds to the Dining Room or Triclinium with a semicircular table. The water from here came from the monumental fountain or nymphaeum at the back of the villa, which supplied a simulated waterfall.  
 

The power of the family that occupied this villa is evident in both the pars urbana and the sculptural ensembles that can be seen in the Historical Museum of the locality. Notable figures include Dionysus, Apollo, Perseus, Andromeda, Hermaphroditus, Silenus, or Venus. Most of the representations allude to Greco-Roman mythology but also to the religious worship of the owners. Special mention is made of the bronze pieces depicting Hypnos or Somus, the god of sleep, which decorated the Dining Room.
 

The residential area was abandoned in the mid-5th century, coinciding with intentional breakages of the sculptures left beneath the rubble or in the house's fountains. It was the time when the residential space was transformed into a productive one with bread ovens, grape presses, fulling mills, and modest houses.
 

In the necropolis area adjoining the villa, exhumed tombs have been found, arranged in parallel rows with interspersed free spaces. These interspersed spaces would have served for both access to the tombs and their progressive and gradual extension over time.