Milreu - Roman Ruins

25 November 2007

Imagine for a moment, being able to see, touch and absorb the beauty and craftsmanship of mosaics from the Roman era; imagine your mind flowing into those mosaics as water flowed over them 2000 years ago, and allowing your own sense of time and space to carry you back in time to this bath.

You have already been through the hot baths and are now stepping into the cold bath to cool down.

Or perhaps it is a few centuries later and you dip into this pool at the entry to 4^th century temple.

You can do all of this a short kilometre from the small town of Estoi (about 9 km from Faro, the capital of Algarve province) in the ruins of Milreu. The excavations here show the remnants of a Roman villa and farm from the 1^st century as well as later buildings. How did all of this come to be here?

Efficiently organized rural areas were always essential for the economic prosperity of the Roman Empire. The 2^nd and 1^st centuries BC saw improvements in agricultural methods, especially in vine and olive growing and in the husbandry of livestock, to meet the needs of the population and the troops stationed in the various provinces of the Roman Empire.

The villa rustica was a small farming center that typically started with a small house. In the 2^nd century AD and particularly in the 3^rd century the houses increased considerably in size as agricultural landowners moved to the country and built large, luxurious homes decorated with mosaics and marble, and fitted with excellent water supply networks and baths.

The ruins of Milreu exemplify this type of villa and its origins was linked to the economic growth experienced in the Roman provinces of Hispania (Spain of today) and Lisutania (today’s Portugal). Within 200 years it was transformed into a luxurious Roman villa. Diggings to date have systematically excavated the structures of the 3^rd century AD. The initial 1^st century buildings have yet to be investigated. Built on rammed earth walls on masonry bases, other buildings were built over the 1^st century ruins in the 2^nd and especially the 3^rd century.

In the 2^nd century a residence with solid masonry walls was built. It was used without great alterations until the end of the 3^rd century when the farm portion underwent major alterations. The Type of construction can be seen here; small field stones embedded in a rough mortar and faced with and contained by masonry.

The extent of the villa, its baths and outbuildings can be envisaged from the first picture.

Under the white 16^th century building are the footings and half walls of the 2^nd century villa and servant quarters; the heated rooms; and the bath of the family residence, now excavated.

The well-to-do were able to commission busts as part of the process of remembering ancestors.

In the 4^{th century, this prosperous family added a sanctuary or temple.}

Up to the late 19^th century there was still a polygonal tank in the cella square in the center of the floor. Given its central position it probably served in the liturgy of the cult of a nymph where the presence of water represented a stream and the semicircular apse housed a statue. Archaeological finds show that from the 6^th century the pagan building was transformed into a Christian church with a baptismal font in the patio of the sanctuary. It also became a cemetery with graves around the podium and with a small mausoleum. Funeral inscriptions on one of the columns between the end of the 8^th century and the beginning of the 10^th cover a family of Moors, Al-Hâmmﻦ (“from the hot fountains”) suggesting the space was also used for religious purposes during the Islamic era.

The farm and villa seem to have been abandoned in the second half of the 10^th century when the vaults of the buildings collapsed. The first construction eventually giving rise to the white farmhouse seen today, probably took place soon after the reconquest of Faro and this area from the Moors in 1249. Later in the 15^th or 16^th century the building occupied essentially the same area as today. In the 19^th century the farmhouse gained its present configuration when the existing buildings were linked up and the house was strengthened with the round buttresses that are unique in the architecture of the Algarve.

The inside of its main chimney makes an interesting photograph. Most chimneys here are of the same style, even to this day, with a round or minaret cap supported by small uprights between which the smoke escapes.

And to think – we never found anything of interest in our backyard.