The Ministry of Culture of the Junta de Andalucía began the fourth campaign of excavations in the amphitheater of Ategua during this first week of October. It will focus on the southeast corner of the building, already partially completed in 2023.
It is precisely in this area that there were structures in good condition, predating the construction of the amphitheater and linked to the Republican city destroyed by Julius Caesar in the year 45 BC, during the wars with Pompey.
This new excavation also aims to widen the route of the facade on its southwest side, discover the possible existence of other doors, in addition to the two already known, and document the street which delimits this facade to the south.
The intervention, which will last until November, will also aim to highlight part of the podium wall on its south side. This wall, the one which delimits the sand of the building, where gladiator fights took place, has already been documented on its east side. On this side, its size, estimated at three metersremains almost intact in some of its sections.
The archaeological work was again entrusted to the University of Cordobaspecifically to the Field of Archeology and the PAI HUM Group 882 Ancient cities of Andalusia: from archaeological research to social profitability, an intervention included in the General Research Plan approved by the General Directorate of Historical heritage and that this year it has a budget of 75,000 euros. This group has been in charge of the work since the first campaign.
Previous interventions
In 2018, the Ministry of Culture commissioned a geophysical prospectingon the site of Ategua which allowed the identification of the Roman city and an entertainment building: the amphitheater, considered the second of this type in the city of Córdoba.
Although its state of conservation is very good, since 2020 it has been investigating this construction through a general research plan called Urban analysis from the Ategua website.
During the three previous excavation campaigns, carried out between 2020 and 2023, the dimensions of the building, which consists of 50 meters major axis by 45 meters of minor axis, with an arena measuring 30 meters of major axis by 26 meters of minor axis. These measurements allow us to affirm that today the Ategua amphitheater is the smallest in all of Hispania.
Its two main gates have also been identified: the “porta triumphalis”, located to the north, and the “porta libitinaria”, to the south. And it was concluded that its construction took place during the first third of the 1st century. It has also been confirmed that its use was abandoned in the 2nd century and that during the 3rd to 5th centuries it was used to build other constructions of a completely different type, such as agricultural or livestock ones.
The Ategua complex was declared National monument in 1982 and an asset of cultural interest as an archaeological zone, already in 2004, and which is part of the network of cultural enclaves of the Junta de Andalucía.
