Ginés Donaire I Jaén, (EFE).- The sculpture of the Lady of Cástulo is serving to shed more light and knowledge on the archaeological site of Linares (Jaén), one of the most important sites on the Peninsula with more than 4,000 years of life.
The sculpture is already the main claim of the Archaeological Museum of Linares, where dramatized visits are also organized that recreate the story of this Lady, whom some already know as Valeria Tosca.
The Lady of Cástulo was found by chance last September during works to install a new pavement at the entrance to this Ibero-Roman city.
“It was a paradox that it was so close to so many people and for so long it went unnoticed,” says Marcelo Castro, director of the Cástulo archaeological complex.
It is estimated that the sculpture has been there, just one meter underground, since at least the 5th century AD, judging by the minting date of the coins found there.
Francisco Arias, director of the Archaeological Museum of Linares, indicates that it was precisely this unique finding that inspired the location of the sculpture in the museum, since the public begins to see it from the very entrance.
Two phases in the Lady of Cástulo
The Lady of Cástulo appeared inside a large building that was later found to be a bath. Specifically, the sculpture was next to the pool or the exedra.
“As the baths were abandoned, roof tiles and other debris fell onto the exedra. And right there, on a then sloping surface, the sculpture was thrown, falling to the ground upside down, leaving its pedestal in the foreground”, explains Marcelo Castro.
For the archaeologist from Cástulo, “this lady immortalized in marble illuminates two main times: its creation in the first century AD to form part of an architectural project, a new work carried out in the city, and its destruction and concealment at the beginning of the century.” V AD”.
Judging by the traces of the sculpture, with the rear part flush, without reaching the achieved volume of the front part, Castro considers that it was designed to be located in a niche or niche.
“The sculpture could have occupied a prominent place in those same hot springs, or perhaps, in one of the nearby funerary monuments,” says Marcelo Castro.
In the case of the lady with no known name from Cástulo, the woman’s body is completely hidden, even her feet are covered, by boots made of leather so fine that her fingers show through.
Only the hands are visible, busy keeping the cloak that covers them in place.
The name “Valerie”
“One guesses an ideally proportioned body, as if it were an incarnation of the divine Venus,” Castro describes.
In his opinion, “this group of sculptures is inspired by the representations of the women of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, especially the Empress Livia, also called Livia Drusila, a diminutive taken from the name of her father, Marco Livio Druso Claudiano” .
The Lady of Cástulo has already begun to be called “Valeria”, because that name appears in the founding inscriptions of the Cástulo circus.
Meanwhile, the Provincial Council of Jaén has allocated 150,000 euros to the construction of a path to facilitate pedestrian access to the archaeological site of Cástulo.
This project has involved the construction of a pedestrian path that starts from the North Gate of this city and that reaches the Christian temple.
In total, this path is 375 meters long and runs from the parking lot and the visitor reception center of the site to the urban center of this Ibero-Roman city. EFE