Cool Finds Conservators Are Puzzling Together Ancient Roman Murals Found in Hundreds of Pieces Excavated from a nearly 2,000-year-old villa in Valencia, Spain, the broken-up murals once formed fresco decor The broken walls of the villa are covered in frescoes, or paintings made on wet plaster. Vilamuseu In the ruins of an ancient Roman villa in Spain, researchers have unearthed over 4,000 fragments of murals painted in the early second century. Now, experts are conserving and reassembling these puzzle pieces to revive the decorative walls of this Roman outpost built during the reign of Emperor Trajan. The villa, known as Barberes Sud, is located in Villajoyosa on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, near Alicante. Its latest excavation—carried out by the local municipal archaeology service, housed at the Vilamuseu, and Alebus Historical Heritage Company—covered more than 9,000 square feet. According to a translated statement by the Vilamuseu, archaeologists determined the villa contained an industrial section, a multi-room atrium and a large garden surrounded by “stately,” “richly decorated” rooms. Today, only the foundations of these rooms remain.Their collapsed walls were made of compacted clay and covered in frescoes—watercolor paintings made atop wet plaster. The researchers carefully collected, numbered and documented the painted fragments from a collapsed wall in one of the rooms, then brought them to the Vilamuseu’s restoration laboratory for reconstruction. So far, experts have pieced together 22 of the 866 pieces of one painted panel from the wall. The fresco depicts draped green garlands, cartoonish birds and red motifs. Other fragments from the site appear to have flaked off large columns that once supported the villa’s porticoed garden: They’re composed of curved stucco gouged with decorative vertical lines, meant to make the columns fluted. The excavation covered over 9,000 feet. Vilamuseu The Barberes Sud villa was built nearly 2,000 years ago by Romans, near a road connecting the Roman settlement of Alonís, or Allon, to the sea. The empire had conquered the Iberian Peninsula—now modern Spain and Portugal—between 218 B.C.E. and 19 C.E., fighting first to expel Carthaginians from the land, then various tribes. Dubbed Hispania, the peninsula became an important, incorporated Roman region. Several senators would come from Spain, including Trajan and Hadrian, who later became successive emperors. The fragments are being conserved in Vilamuseu’s restoration laboratory for reconstruction. Vilamuseu The Romans left their mark on the region of modern Villajoyosa. Previous excavations have unearthed Roman baths built in 85 C.E., and a second-century Roman funerary tower still stands near the coast. As Artnet News’ Min Chen reports, the tower’s dedicatee is believed to be a prominent Alonís resident named Lucio Terencio Mancino. Researchers are photographing the pieces at uniform scale, so they can be digitally fit together. Vilamuseu In 1999, divers found a Roman shipwreck off the coast of Villajoyosa. Known as the Bou Ferrer, it’s one of the largest Roman shipwrecks ever found in the Mediterranean. It sank in the first century while carrying a massive cargo of fish sauce: 2,500 amphorae filled with fermented anchovy, mackerel and horse mackerel. The recent excavations of the Barberes Sud villa have helped researchers discern the ancient residence’s layout. Conservators will continue to restore and fit together its broken murals, in an effort to see more of the villa’s rich decoration. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.