Death, blasphemy & muzac

Once upon a time - in the heady days of Rome´s first pagan-turned-Christian emperor, Constantine the Great - the cityscape of the great Roman capitals started to be transformed. Following Rome´s lead, Christian churches, basilicas and residences for bishops were being built in all the major cities. And they were not being built in the city centres, home still to temples and government offices, but on the city´s outskirts, in the very centre of the burial grounds that dotted the roads that exited all Roman cities and that used to be pagan burial sites but were now increasingly used as the last resting place for the growing population of Christians. At the epicentre of these cemetery complexes of tombs, crypts, sarcophagi and large and small funerary monuments you would often find a very special and very sacred tomb, one that held the body of a Christian martyr.

In the 4th century, in Tarraco´s western suburb, some 700 metres west of the city walls, probably Spain´s most impressive and splendorous Christian complex was constructed on top of and surrounding the sanctuary of Fructuosis, the man who as bishop of the city was martyred in 259 in the amphitheatre. Two of the oldest Christian basilica (Paleochristian or Early-Christian is the word historians and archeologists use to refer to these buildings) on the Iberian peninsula were built on this holy site, close to the river Francolí. And the number of mausoleums and crypts surrounding the basilica continued to expand. A grand total of 2050 tombs (!) would be unearthed by archeologists in the early 20th century. In the 4th and 5th century, the sanctuary, the basilicas and the necropolis became a prime centre of attraction, a prestigious place of worship and commemoration and a vibrant meeting place for pilgrims and curious visitors alike.

Because Saint Fructuosis was not just anybody - he was the first Christian martyr of the Iberian peninsula, the first local "hero of the faith". The cult surrounding Saint Fructuosis was flourishing and, with it, Tarraco´s western suburb. By the 6th century it was all over: under the Visigoths, the new rulers of the land, the Church moved uptown. Its headquarters and its principal place of worship moved to the acropolis, the area that for centuries had been home to the (pagan) imperial temple at the zenith of the cityscape.

When, between 1925 and 1933, the basilica-cum-necropolis of Saint Fructuosis was uncovered to make way for Tarragona´s state tobacco factory - the Tabacalera-, it was immediately hailed as one of the most significant Paleochristian sites in the entire Western world. Part of the site was preserved as an open-air museum, known as the Museo y Necrópolis Paleocristianos (Av. Ramon i Cajal, 84), managed now by the National Archeological Museum of Tarragona (MNAT). It´s a place that I´ve mentioned in another post. The Tabacalera is currently being converted and in the future is likely to house the large Archeological Museum that is now in the old city centre (on Plaça del Rei). When this happens, everyone agrees that a new archeological expedition on the grounds of the Tabacalera will have to be mounted, which will most probably lead to new finds, things left uncovered and undiscovered in the 1920s and 1930s.

Over a decade ago, in 1994, the foundations of the other funerary basilica of this complex that was connected by a road to Saint Fructuosis´ basilica - along with the remnants of six other buildings of the same era (a suburban villa, storehouses, etc) - was discovered outside the Tabacalera grounds, on the other side of the road. This time it was to make way for a shopping mall (Parc Central). The singular, eclectic and small-sized Early-Christian basilica was the most important of the new finds. The controversy that followed, about how to preserve these late-Roman ruins, eventually led to a travesty of heritage preservation and a travesty of history. I went to see the site a few weeks ago. It was bad enough news that the remnants of the basilica and the other buildings were removed from their original location, lowered 2,5 metres and grouped together, so that they could be conveniently placed in one compact section of the underground parking lot of the new shopping mall; it was equally bad news that the planned underground tunnel which was going to integrate this new site with the necropolis museum across the road, didn´t go ahead.

Since its opening to the public, things have only gone further downhill: closed for most of the time, relegated to semi-darkness, claustrophobic, pieces of the exhibition missing, little to no information about the historical background, and loud elevator music beaming in from the parking lot which blasphemizes everything these ruins stand for. No wonder hardly anyone comes to visit this place. A major disappointment and a missed opportunity. An orphaned sibling of Tarragona´s grand monuments...

If only... If only they had left the ruins in their original location (which specialists say was certainly an option), had dug that underground tunnel to connect the site to the necropolis museum, had turned the place into something grandiose, with bright ceilings and light flooding in, had closed the site off hermetically and acoustically from the shopping mall, had provided appropriate accompanying text or audio; basically, if only they had let museologists do their work, then going to visit the ruins of this Paleochristian temple might have been a genuine educational experience. And perhaps even a metaphysical experience: a small haven of reflective contemplation not just about the past but also the present and the future. And also a space of semi-religious communion with old things as much as with the people you might be visiting this place with because in the end, to quote Adam Gopnik, "museums, as much as they are places to go and see things, are also places to go and talk about things, and, through talking, to understand something about the way life takes place in time". Maybe it is not too late. I hope so.