Clerks, Dominicans, wheat and water

The archeological zone around the Plaza Pallol has a number of things to offer, the most interesting being Ca l´Agapito, once a Dominican convent and school. One of Ca l´Agapito´s later incarnations was as a government storehouse for wheat, hence the name of the square (this is the meaning of the word ´Pallol´ in Catalan). But below this building´s tranquil medieval exterior lies - as so often in Tarragona - an even older, Roman past. The part of the building that is open to the public is referred to as the ´Volta del Pallol´ and is a wonderfully preserved part of a gallery of the Provincial Forum, the centre of government power and the central piece in Tarraco´s acropolis. Centre stage in this gallery is a huge scale model of 2nd-century Tarraco, which is your best way of making sense of the layout of Tarraco...and of making sense of the location of the ´Volta del Pallol´, just next to the now disappeared south-western tower of the Provincial Forum (remnants of the Forum tower, however, can be found in the building across the Plaza Pallol, the so-called Antiga Audiencia, nowadays a cultural centre), the tower on the south-eastern corner of this immense rectangular square being the Praetorian Tower on Plaza del Rei.

Waiting to be opened to the public are two other archeological jewels. First, the interior patio of this former Dominican convent which contains significant and precious stretches of the perimeter wall that closed off the Provincial Forum. And secondly, a recent archeological discovery. Archeologists have dug up below the ´Volta del Pallol´ and the Plaza del Pallol what seems to be part of the network of underground vaults that surrounded the Provincial Forum and served to support the portico, as well as allowing clerks, scribes and others working in the Forum direct and quick access from the exterior onto the Forum. The vault uncovered - which after the Romans was used as a cistern - is 14 metres long.