The Roman House On Era Street

In 1990, behind the old harbor, in an area known as La Era, there were some digging works of a late cemetery and a cluster of Roman detached houses.

The most complex houses had a hall, bedrooms, patio, kitchen and a reservoir, similar to classic Roman houses, with a central part and other rooms built around it.

One of those buildings was preserved by the General Directorate of Culture (Dirección General de Cultura) due to its high degree of preservation and its scientific, historic and educational relevance. The aforementioned housing unit has an area of 300 m2 with the following ground plan: a huge central room with a bench and plastered walls, presumably a triclinium of reception, plus two symmetrical rooms with a main room entrance.

In the northern part, a room with sewage lines is located, some sort of hall or foyer. Around the patio, there are two rooms on each side, one of them for water purposes with a 2 m well, next to the kitchen (possibly) of the housing unit.

The house of Era street belonged to the town part of the Puerto de Mazarrón in the Roman era, and was built around some other housing units and a network of small streets and alleys. Those housing units were the only truly residential units in the late Roman Era, according to a recent research.

Their construction goes hand in hand with high production and rise era of the salting factories (IV-V AD centuries). The remains of the materials located in the housing units, the high volume of coins found and the richness of house furnishings indicate that they were high-income housing units.

We must suppose that the population worked in trade and administrative tasks linked to salting factories. Settlers had Roman traditions, housings and urban layouts with a local touch, hence the materials and construction systems used.