A PLACE WHERE ROME SHINES BENEATH THE EARTH
Talking about Salar is talking about an archaeological miracle that has transformed the identity of an entire town. This small municipality, nestled in the fertile plains of the Poniente de Granada between Loja and Huétor Tájar, lived peacefully for centuries without suspecting the treasure hidden beneath its olive fields. Until in 2004, excavators preparing a wastewater treatment plant stumbled upon the unthinkable: a Roman villa dating from the 1st to the 5th centuries AD, declared a Property of Cultural Interest in 2021.
Only one third of the site has been excavated, revealing that we are facing a stately villa more akin to those found in Rome itself than to provincial ones. The polychrome mosaics decorating its rooms are masterpieces of Roman art: hunting scenes in the western ambulatory, marine motifs in the eastern, and complex geometries in the triclinium, the main dining room where the dominus held his banquets. The nymphaeum, with its rich mosaic decoration, illustrates hunting themes featuring the villa’s dominus as the protagonist, while the Venus sculptures found there astonish by their exceptional state of preservation.
The villa was located very close to one of the main Roman communication routes of Baetica, the one that crossed transversely through the Granada depression, which explains its wealth and monumentality. This strategic position in a province that exported wheat, oil, and wine made it the center of a prosperous agricultural estate rivaling the best imperial villas.
The Interpretation Center of the Roman Villa of Salar houses the most significant findings and offers guided theatrical visits where Roman protagonists help visitors understand firsthand what life was like for a Roman aristocrat. The nighttime visits, with the mosaics illuminated under the stars, transport visitors two thousand years back in a unique immersive experience.
But Salar is much more than its Roman villa. The town preserves a castle-fortress extensively renovated that served as the residence until the early 20th century of the Marquises of Salar, the Church of Santa Ana, El Bañuelo of Arab origin, and the Hernán Pérez del Pulgar Palace House, the Christian conqueror who took the Muslim fortress and whom the Catholic Monarchs appointed as mayor.
Recognized as a Magic Town of Spain, Salar has successfully turned its archaeological heritage into a driver of development. In just four years, its strong commitment to research, conservation, and dissemination of the villa has made it a regional reference for good heritage practices. In this corner of the Territorio Poniente, Rome is not ancient history: it is a present that shines beneath the earth, waiting to continue revealing its secrets.