Fragments of linen fabric from the Roman military vicus of Puente Castro (León, Spain)

Abstract

One of the most important news in the archaeology of the Roman León is the identification of a new military vicus 2.5 km far from the camp of legio VII gemina. The vicus of Puente Castro has similar characteristics to that located in the northern borders of the Roman Empire. The road from the camp towards the southeast is the backbone of the vicus. This is dated from the mid first century AD until the central decades of third century AD, when it suffers a violent destruction. 

We present here four Roman linen fragments found in the vicus of Puente Castro, belonging to a moneybag. It has been preserved precisely by the metal salts in contact with the coin hoard. The analysis of one of the fragments confirm the use of flax and hemp in the fabrication of this textile. The date of the coins allow us to maintain in the mid third Century AD the chronology of the textile fragments. Linens make up a small proportion of the textile corpus in Hispania. This find increases this reduced archaeological evidence of Roman textiles.