“Labrum” romano procedente de las termas del campamento de la “Legio VII gemina” en León

Abstract

Three large purplish fragments of marmora were found during the excavations carried out in 1996 in the Puerta Obispo area, next to the eastern gate of the Roman and Medieval city of León. They belonged to a Roman basin (labrum). Roman marbled basins are commonplace functional and ornamental elements in the Roman World. However, such elements have been seldom documented in Hispanic provinces, maybe due to publishing-related problems rather than to the absence of findings. The fragments found in León, made with stone of the quarries of Espejón (Burgos, Castilla y León), possibly connected with the legionary baths, completes the dispersion map for this kind of element in ancient Hispania, while it makes it possible to further address our attention to productive and functional aspects connected with the labra.