The archaeological site of Fuente Álamo, in the Cordoban town of Puente Genil, may contain a proto-library that would be the oldest found to date in the Iberian Peninsula, according to a study published in the Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology by researchers from the universities of Córdoba and Granada.
Until now it was thought that room number 10 at Fuente Álamo had been a shrine to Mithras, a deity of Persian origin that was incorporated into the Roman pantheon at a relatively late stage. The complex began life as a spa in the 1st century BC, which was later abandoned and converted into a villa around the 3rd century. The specialists do not give a precise date for when the room was used as a library, but say the house reached its peak over the following two centuries, before being remodelled again in the 6th century.
To clear up this question, the researchers used a technique known as shape grammar, which makes it possible to analyse how the different architectural elements of a room fit together. In the case of Fuente Álamo, the room has a layout that matches the structure of Roman libraries: an apse, rectangular niches that may have held shelving, semicircular niches, a podium and adjoining rooms that could have served as workspaces or storage areas.
The discovery is exceptional, experts argue, because the architecture of Fuente Álamo preserves a particular combination of clues that allows them to go beyond a simple hypothesis and push the research further. The library at Fuente Álamo would thus be not only the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula, but also the westernmost in the entire Roman Empire and one of the best preserved.