The discovery and excavation of the Roman Necropolis took place at the end of the 19th century thanks to the initiative of Juan Fernández López and the English archaeologist George Bonsor. Its use dates back to around the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. The Necropolis itself dates to around the 1st century. The most common burial ritual was cremation. The bodies were cremated in pyres carved into the rock where the pyre was placed.
Sometimes, these cremation pits were also used for burials, with the ashes placed in the pit, which was then covered with ashlars, bricks, or roof tiles. Once covered with earth, a stele was placed to indicate the location and the name of the deceased. The collective mausoleum, consisting of an underground chamber for families, is the most common type of burial in the Carmona Necropolis. It is accessed through a stepped shaft. The chamber is usually quadrangular, with a bench running along the lower part of the walls, where offerings are placed and above which the niches are opened.
In some chambers, traces of the doors that once closed them remain; others must have been sealed with a slab. The exterior of the burials was likely marked with boundary stones, stelae, or tumuli, and other structures of which no evidence survives. To conceal the roughness of the rock, the tombs were decorated.
The Necropolis is one of the most important archaeological sites on the Iberian Peninsula because it preserves a large number of paintings. Don't miss: *Tomb of the Elephant*. This is a sanctuary dedicated to the worship of the deities Cybele and Attis. The veneration of these Eastern gods reached enormous importance in Rome. Attis, a god who died and was resurrected each year, took root among the people of Carmona, as demonstrated by other findings in the Necropolis, and signified the recovery of a distinct form of religiosity, prevalent in the Eastern and Mediterranean cultures with which Carmona had long maintained undeniable ties.
Alongside this god was the Mother Goddess, the divine embodiment of nature, mistress of life and death, represented by the aniconic form of a betyl (ovoid stone). However, the figure of the elephant exerted such a fascination from its discovery that it became the most prominent symbol of eternity in this building.
*Tomb of Servilia* The tomb of Servilia is the most monumental of the traditional structures found in the Necropolis. Dating from the time of Augustus, it adheres to Hellenistic models and replicates a luxurious mansion, with a large porticoed courtyard onto which various rooms open. One of these areas is the covered gallery, in the central section of which is a chamber where the sculpture of Servilia appears to have originally stood. At the front of the porticoed courtyard is the burial chamber, which has a large, trapezoidal vestibule covered by a pointed vault; this gives it a unique character, unprecedented in the area.
In short, everything suggests that the tomb, dating from the time of Augustus, must have belonged to a powerful family. The grandeur of this tomb leads us to believe that its occupant, Servilia, whose name we know thanks to a statue found there (unfortunately decapitated), must have belonged to a family of powerful Roman rulers and officials. The necropolis boasts a comprehensive museum displaying a large number of glass and clay artifacts, jewelry, objects related to funerary rites, as well as statues and reproductions of the paintings that decorated some of the tombs.