Mértola (Portugal) entre Roma y el Islam. Evidencias de las transformaciones de la ciudad entre los siglos V y X

Abstract

The excavations of recent years in Mértola, Portugal, enabled the discovery of new contexts of occupation of the city, that attest the importance and dynamism of the city in Late Antiquity, also the continuities of its structures in the first centuries of Islamic rule and its slow transformations, and the new elements that were introduced into the urban landscape, especially from the 9th century. In this paper we will address, above all, the vestiges found in the archaeological interventions carried out in the area of the acropolis, occupied in Late Antiquity by a luxurious Christian religious complex, in the castle, in which the sources refer to the fortification by local rebels in the 9th century, and in the parish church, in which there is evidence of constructions prior to the old Almohad mosque.