Nov 20, 2025

Evidence of misplaced Celtiberian town under Borobia

The rediscovery of a funerary stele has furnished new proof of a misplaced Celtiberian City under the municipality of Borobia withinside the province of Soria, Spain.

The tale started in 1971, while 3 Roman funerary stelae have been exposed at the outskirts of Borobia. Carved on each facets with depictions of horsemen with spears and shields, the stelae have been taken to the Numantine Museum in Soria.

A lacking segment from one stele turned into later unearthed and saved in a neighborhood farm building, wherein it remained disregarded for over 1/2 of a century till it turned into rediscovered through researchers from the University of Zaragoza`s Institute of Heritage and Humanities.

A take a look at of the stele, posted in Archivo Español de Arqueología, concludes that the entire monument could were more or less one hundred forty centimetres in top and turned into erected outdoor the oppidum of Virovia, a agreement lengthy taken into consideration misplaced.

The inscriptions commemorate  individuals, Sempronius Aninius and Lucius Sempronius Ambato, and endorse that comrades-in-palms financed the funerary monuments of fallen colleagues.

Image Credit : Numantine Museum / M.ª C. Sopena

Scholars Marta Chordá Pérez, Borja Díaz Ariño, and Alberto Jiménez Carrera argue that the imagery blends Latin and indigenous Celtiberian traditions, reflecting the mixing of neighborhood auxiliary cavalry into Rome`s navy forces for the duration of the early empire.

Until now, Virovia turned into recognised handiest from bronze cash bearing the call Uirouia and displaying the conventional Celtiberian iconography of a galloping horseman with a lance. Several such cash were discovered in and round Borobia, along side Celtiberian ceramics unearthed for the duration of take a look at excavations on the ruined Borobia Castle.

Together, those unearths strongly endorse that the historic town as soon as occupied El Cabezo, a defensible hill overlooking the village. Its role among the Roman towns of Bilbilis and Numantia, and its get admission to to mineral resources, could have made the web website online strategically precious in antiquity.

Researchers trust Virovia vanished for the duration of the Flavian era, turning into absorbed into the Roman municipal system. However, its call, and possibly its memory, survived thru its coinage. The discovery of the reconstructed stele now gives the primary clean archaeological hyperlink among Borobia and the elusive Celtiberian agreement.