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Roman villa of La Ontavia

Terrinches, Campo de Montiel, Ciudad Real

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Curiosities

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Roman villa of La Ontavia

Nature · Terrinches, Campo de Montiel, Ciudad Real

Image of Terrinches, not of the place itself.

The La Ontavia site, in the municipal area of Terrinches (Ciudad Real), lies next to the Mairena stream and close to the old Vía Augusta, in the territory of the ancient Mentesa Oretana. It houses a notable Roman thermal complex or balneum, dated between the 2nd and 5th centuries, with a changing room and cold and hot rooms, and hypocaust heating beneath the floors; in some sections the walls stand up to two metres high. A late antique and early medieval necropolis was later built over these structures, with more than fifty graves oriented from west to east, with finds including bronze and silver rings. Excavation campaigns from 2007 to 2014 documented more than 2,000 m² of structures. Declared a bien de interés patrimonial (a heritage-protection category in Castilla-La Mancha) in 2017, it is now fenced off and visited on guided tours.

Photo: B25es (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What to see and do in Terrinches