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The mosaics of the villa of Orpheus

Camarzana de Tera, Benavente y Los Valles, Zamora

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The mosaics of the villa of Orpheus

Monument · Camarzana de Tera, Benavente y Los Valles, Zamora

Image of Camarzana de Tera, not of the place itself.

The Roman villa of Orpheus, in the centre of Camarzana de Tera, is a late Roman site from the 2nd to the 4th centuries, with fifteen rooms arranged around a porticoed courtyard or peristyle. In one of its rooms, possibly a triclinium, a mosaic depicts Orpheus surrounded by animals, with eight labelled panels of named horses and hunting scenes; in another, the oecus where guests were received, the mosaic of the abduction of Europa unfolds, framed by a border of marine figures, while the rest of the rooms show geometric mosaics. Known since the 19th century from finds made during road construction, it was excavated from 2007, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 2010, and turned into a museum site in 2018; it is open daily with a guide, with extended hours in summer.

Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Blasdepaz assumed (based on copyright claims). (Public domain)

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