1. Early Late Roman Valentia (4th to 5th centuries C.E.)

1Historical information relating to the 4th and 5th centuries is very scarce, and epigraphical data are also non-existent. With respect to the 3rd to the 5th centuries C.E., we have knowledge of only one historical event that occurred at Valencia, but it is a very important one. In 304 C.E., Saint Vincent, deacon from Caesaraugusta, was martyred and killed here, during the last major Roman persecution against the Christians. This cruel episode immediately became well-known around the Roman world, and Saint Vincent the most important and venerated martyr from Spain (Saxer 1995).

2The archaeology indicates that Valentia would have been damaged and possibly destroyed by barbarian attacks both during the late 3rd century and at the beginning of the 5th century C.E. Such documentary evidence is crucial in providing a context for the abundant archaeological remains. Currently, the archaeology is the only instrument through which the city's history can be reconstructed.

3Archaeological evidence indicates significant problems in the town around 270-280 C.E., a date provided by pottery and a hoard of coins. All of the Roman houses were destroyed, as well as some public buildings. This destruction was rapid, and almost complete. The subsequent rebuilding also occurred immediately, but this extended only to public structures: ancient houses were not restored (Ribera 2008: 380-383).

4The principal testimony of Valentia's revival was a new public building erected close to the ancient basilica and over another of imperial date, possibly the schola of a professional or religious collegium. We postulate that this building may have had an administrative and important function. Perhaps it replaced the Basilica which had fallen into ruin, and adjoined this new building on its west side.

5Its north-west corner is of special interest. Here, three rooms are well preserved, each one with its own small doorway. Only one chamber opens into the courtyard via a characteristically small entrance that also communicates with the other two. This room was a vestibule that would have served as a point of access to the other rooms, which were otherwise isolated either side of it. These three rooms at the north-west corner could have been used as a prison, based on the restricted access. This represents the best explanation of the archaeological discoveries around the north-west corner of the building (Ribera 2016: 1775-1776).

1.1. Funerary topography

6The Late Antique cemetery areas (fig. 1) included some dating from the earlier period, and some new zones. Some necropolis, like that on the west side in “Misericordia” street, ceased to be used in the 3rd century. Another, to the south-west (the “Boatella” cemetery), was in use between the 2nd and 5-6th centuries C.E. (Martínez 2019). To the north, alongside the Via Augusta, the ancient and small “Orriols” necropolis remained in use until the 4th century C.E. Though this might have been pagan, it was probably associated with a Roman villa rather than the town, in view of its more remote location (Ribera 1996: 95).

Fig. 1. Funerary topography of Valentia.

7The “Roqueta” site lies to the south, also alongside the Via Augusta. Around the former church of Saint Vincent, excavations have provided the first evidence corroborating a tradition that located Saint Vincent's first burial here. The earliest graves are from the 4th century, including one containing a lead sarcophagus (Ribera, Soriano 1987: 150). It would be necessary to dig inside the church, however, to find the probable earliest Christian building in Valencia.

8Urban change was constant and quite apparent during the 4th century C.E., although many buildings and other basic structures have survived from the Roman and pagan town.

1.2. The earliest Christianity

9Archaeological evidence for the earliest practice of Christianity at Valentia comes from the destruction levels of the administrative building, datable to the early 5th century. It can be assumed, however, that the late 4th century C.E. prohibition of the pagan religion had involved the end of open pagan worship, and, concomitantly, an official monopoly on Christian rituals. We have some clues to suggest early Christian activity at the administrative building. On the one hand, an extraordinary glass chalice decorated with biblical scenes (fig. 2), like the traditio legis (Arbeiter 2002), was found among the debris in the north-west corner of this edifice, over the room provisionally interpreted as a prison. Two circular holes appeared in the concrete floor of the next room towards the east. Both could be the site of an altar table (Ribera 2012: 152).

10We know of other public buildings that could also have been Christianised, such as the curia and the Asclepios shrine. Archaeological evidence in fact demonstrates that some Roman buildings remained largely intact until the 6th century, because the first clear signs of stone robbing only occurred towards the 5th-6th centuries C.E. (Ribera et al. 2020: 383-384). It would therefore seem that these buildings were still standing. We know that, in the late Roman period, many pagan and civil buildings were adapted to the new religion. Some of them became churches or other Christian edifices (Vaes 1990).

Fig. 2. Glass bowl with Christian images. 400 C.E. L’Almoina excavation.

2. The earliest cemetery in town

11We can, however, be confident about the Christian nature of the former administrative building from evidence from the next phase of its occupation. Starting in the mid-5th century, or early in the 6th century C.E., a cemetery appeared over its debris. We have so far found about 22 graves (fig. 3). This unusual new necropolis only occupied the space covered by the former administrative building. These burials are remarkable because of their location—inside the town, at a time when it was still normal for the dead to be interred outside it. During the same period, a few metres to south, a large church, the Cathedral of the Visigoth period was erected (Ribera 2008: 397-398). By the late 6th-beginning 7th century C.E., a small church or, at least, a horseshoe-shaped, small apse was built over one of the rooms of the former administrative building, the same site where the chalice bearing biblical scenes was found. This apse is very similar to another from the church of Tarraco that stood over the arena of the Roman amphitheatre, which commemorates the site where Saints Fructuoso, Augurio and Eulogio were martyred in 259. A small cemetery is also located around this church at Tarraco (Muñoz 2016: 119).

Fig. 3. L’Almoina excavation. 6th century C.E. phase.

12This accumulation of finds of a Christian nature on the same site would, we believe, need a special explanation. The only interpretation that we consider feasible would be that the north-west corner of the administrative building was the actual prison where Saint Vincent was martyred. The desire of believers to be buried near the tombs of martyrs (ad sanctos), as in the case of the cemetery that grew around the tomb of Saint Vincent in la Roqueta, or at other places connected with martyrdom, was one of the earliest Christian burial practices, and in some cases, gave rise to the installation of graveyards inside cities (Alapont, Ribera 2006: 168-171, 2009: 61).

13At the middle 5th and the beginning of the 6th century the first inner city cemetery is seen in the Almoina excavation. It was set up over a former Roman building and connected with the martyrdom of Saint Vincent. This small urban cemetery still maintained its Roman form, characterised by individual burials in graves covered with tiles, and the absence of burial offerings. Only a privileged minority would have had access to it, so that the rest of the population continued to use the necropolis outside the city (Alapont, Ribera 2006: 187, 2009: 67).

14On the same site, after the end of the 6th century, another totally different and larger cemetery was established around the small apse of the Almoina site. This new necropolis was more closely linked to the Visigoth world. It contained large family tombs built of ashlar for multiple burials and contained funeral offerings (Alapont, Ribera 2006: 179-184, 2009: 65-67).

15If we accept the hypothesis (above) regarding Saint Vincent's place of martyrdom, explaining the whole archaeological assemblage around the site of a former Roman prison becomes much more straightforward.

2.1. A peculiar multiple grave: tomb 41

16In the centre of the first cemetery of Roman tradition, a different grave, designated 41, was distinguishable. Given the large number of human bones that appeared, the excavation process was necessarily very slow and developed over two seasons in 1986 and 1987. Activity unit (AU) XXV was assigned and it was subdivided into several stratigraphic units (UUEE): 1646: skeleton; 1647: fossa; 1657: scrambled bones of 9 individuals; 1676: wall from an earlier period, reused as the boundary of the pit; 1801: articulated skeleton; 1804: articulated skeleton; 1806: articulated skeleton; 10251: wall of the previous phase.

17The 1.80 x 1.10 metre pit was delimited by a wall from a previous phase to the south and another to the east, and by bricks to the north and west. The interior was a mass grave in which were very scrambled remains representing at least 15 individuals (fig. 4). The skeletons were of different ages and sexes. Four of them were children. They were buried at the same time, since they were intertwined on top of each other, without any type of filling being appreciated between them. However, they all maintained the same orientation (fig. 5), which was the usual one in the cemetery. A mature woman wore 4 silver rings. Those found to be articulated were in a supine position and oriented from west to east (fig. 6). A few items from a personal trousseau were recovered: 3 glass beads and 4 rings (Calvo 2000: 195), which was unusual in this phase.

18The pit cut into a tomb from the earlier period, 42, which was a typical tegulae-covered pit burial of Roman tradition. In this case it housed a child skeleton (Alapont, Ribera 2009: 76)

Fig. 4. Tomb 41. The fosse at the beginning of the excavation (SU 1647).

Fig. 5. Tomb 41. Skeletons in the superficial stratum. (SU 1646).

Fig. 6. Tomb 41. Skeleton in the lower stratum. (SU 1804).

19At first sight it was evident that tomb 41 was a kind of mass grave, in which a group of deceased persons would have been buried within a short period of time. Its stratigraphic location indicates it should be dated to a late period of the first episcopal cemetery, since it cut through one of its tombs. In addition, it has been constructed prior to a necropolis of large collective graves, which begun at the end of the 6th century C.E. A date from the middle of the 6th century C.E. seem the most correct.

20Due to these characteristics and archaeological dating, from the outset, the anomalous nature of this grave appeared to have been the result of the plague of the mid the 6th century C.E. (Calvo 2000: 195).

2.2. Preview analytical studies

21In 2013, Professor Michael McCormick of the Initiative for the Science of the Human Past at Harvard University, in collaboration with Professor Johannes Krause from the Institute for Archaeological Sciences at the University of Tübingen, proposed using the skeletons from this collective tomb in a Europe-wide interdisciplinary, biomolecular archaeology-based study to detect the remains of the plague of the 6th century C.E. (Little 2007).

22The basic idea was to use advanced molecular analysis of the bones, and in particular, of the teeth, to elucidate the ancient pathogens and population structures. Radiocarbon dating of the skeletons was additionally obtained.

23The identification of this illness has been made possible by paleogenomic studies that previously identified the causative agent to be the Yersinia Pestis bacterium. Recent multidisciplinary studies have researched its spread, diversity, and genetic history over the course of the pandemic. To elucidate the microevolution of the bacterium during this time period, one international team screened human remains from twenty-one sites in Austria, Britain, Germany, France, and Spain for Yersinia Pestis DNA, reconstructing eight genomes. Phylogenetic analysis of these eight reconstructed genomes revealed the existence of previously undocumented Yersinia Pestis diversity during the 6th to 8th centuries, and provided evidence for the presence of multiple distinct Yersinia Pestis strains in Europe (Keller et al. 2019: 2).

24The radiocarbon dating of the Y. pestis-positive individual from Valencia (432–610) would correlate with the first reported outbreak in Spain in 543 from a contemporary chronicle (Kulikowski 2007). The three unique Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) identified in this genome, which separate it from the identified polytomy, however, may suggest its association with a later outbreak. Intriguingly, a canon of a church council dealing with burial practices for bishops in case of sudden death, held in 546 in Valencia was recently connected with this plague by philological and contextual analysis (Gruber 2018). Later outbreaks within the relevant time frame are documented in Spain’s Visigoth kingdom, e.g., in 584 and 588 by Gregory of Tours, and by a funerary inscription dated 609 at Cortijo de Chinales 35 km northeast of Malaga (Kulikowski 2007).

25The historical evidence for the First Pandemic in France is more substantial, mainly based on the contemporary bishop and historian Gregory of Tours (Stoclet 2007). He reports several plague outbreaks spanning from ca. 543 in the province of Arles through 588 in Marseille to 590 in Avignon. The site of Lunel-Viel, around 30 km southwest of the ancient Roman city of Nîmes and less than 100 km from the mentioned cities, revealed eight exceptional inhumations in demolition trenches unrelated to nearby contemporary cemeteries (Raynaud 2010), of which 6 were related to plague (Keller et al. 2019: 8).

2.3. Other multiple burials

26In this cemetery which originated around the place of a martyrdom, and was formed by individual graves of Roman tradition, the multiple burial we have presented was a particular and distinct case. But three other graves from this phase, very close by: 28, 40 and 50, were also multiple burials (fig. 7), containing the remains of 16, 4 and 7 individuals respectively. These three appeared to be mass graves and were concentrated very closely around the room that may have been the martyr's cell, and that from the 7th century C.E. was delimited above with a small apse. 41 was to the south, 40 to the west, and 28 and 50 to the north. The last two were together and, in part, were below the aforementioned apse. In addition, as they were quite altered when found, it cannot be ruled out that they were the same grave. In all of these multiple graves, adult men and women were buried together with other children.

Fig. 7. The first phase of the necropolis around the martyrdom site (cross).

27Not only were the only mass graves from the first phase of the necropolis grouped around the supposed martyrdom site, but they are the closest to it. This unusual fact might be explained if these were family groups that died in a short period of time and therefore buried almost simultaneously, presupposing the action of some epidemic. Due to the chronological circumstances, the most logical attribution would be to one of the plague outbreaks of the 6th century C.E. It is also logical to assume that those buried belonged to urban elites or, more specifically, to families around the bishop, who were buried in one of the most privileged spaces in the city.

28After the construction of the small horseshoe apse, at the end of the 6th century C.E. or at the beginning of 7th century C.E., a new cemetery was developed, different in design, and related to Germanic funerary rites. Despite this, the same privileged funerary spaces linked to the death, and the tomb of Saint Vincent were maintained. It is probable that these mass graves corresponded with a period of transition (second half of the 6th century C.E.). Lying between the two phases of this funerary area, we must highlight the fact that the new tombs closest to the martyrdom space (no. 20, 30, 31, 43) respected the boundaries of the old mass graves, whose presence would have been known. Some of the tombs of Roman tradition from the first phase, by contrast, were altered by several of the great cists of the second one.

3. Conclusions

29The identification of multiple burials related with pandemic episodes is a new and important way to understand the late antiquity cemeteries. Obviously, this research requires the participation and collaboration of multidisciplinary international teams and diverse archaeological and anthropological analytical laboratories. All burials are not equals. Therefore, we must select those skeletons and those multiple burials that best contribute to the knowledge of this period and the epidemics that characterized it. To get a better understanding of how those who had to face these critical and fatal circumstances lived and died and were buried, it is crucial to collect and analyse all the data.

30In fact, the identification of the remains of this great pandemic plague has provided a completely different view of the first urban Late Antiquity cemetery of Valentia.