Redrawing Tarraco

The city of Tarragona houses an important architectural heritage mainly from its past as ‘Tarraco’, capital of the Roman province of Hispania Citerior, but also from its medieval and late 19th century history. The archaeological ensemble of Tarraco was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, but although many efforts have been devoted by archaeologists and historians to unveil and understand the history and aspect of the Roman city, many aspects remain unknown. This is largely caused by the absence of a coherent body of historiographical material, which is todays cattered across several institutions and, specially, the lack of precise and useful graphical representations of the remains and of the existing city that allows in-depth analysis and interpretations of future findings. In recent years, researchers from the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) and the Architecture School of the URV (ETSA) have teamed up to produce comprehensive, detailed graphic materials, including a new set of plans and sections of the old city, of the grandiose areas of representation of the Provincial capital, and of the hidden structures beneath the city’s surface. These have been executed with the latest technologies (fotogrammetry, laser scanning) but also with traditional methods (measurement, topography), on t op of a mixture of existing materials (hand-drafted cartography from municipal master plans) and of historical and archaeological documentation.

Baixem de les tarimes i connectem: recerca en història medieval i innovació docent

We would like to introduce our group of research, [CONTRA TAEDIUM], created by professionals from different fields, that have contributed in this article. Our purpose is to expose our reflections based on our own experiences, not only in research, but also in teaching. We propose new forms of writing history in order to understand the dairy life of the women and men of the past, from birth to death. We would like to point out that interacting all types of sources is essential to understand our history. But, what really makes sense is to bring our students in the historical methodology and involve them in their education. Moreover, it is necessary to design new teaching materials using the new technologies, although it requires team-work and a great, but satisfying, effort

Noves consideracions sobre la inscripció tarraconense de la beata Thecla (segle V)

S’estudia una inscripció funerària d’una verge consagrada anomenada Thecla d’origen egipci que va ser enterrada en una de les basíliques funeràries que existien en el segle v a ponent de Tarraco. Es revisa el que s’ha escrit sobre aquesta important inscripció els darrers vint anys, i s’analitzen de nou les característiques de l’epígraf (paleografia, formulari, etc.). Finalment, es conclou que no hi ha relació entre aquesta Thecla i el culte implantat en època medieval a santa Tecla com a patrona de Tarragona, en contra del que han proposat alguns autors.