Roman city of Tarraco (Tarragonès region)
The
archaeological site of Tarraco was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 2000.
It contains important remains and shows the urban development of the city. Thanks
to the uninterrupted mixture of old and new, Tarragona itself is something of an
open-air museum, with a high density of remains and monuments incorporated into
the modern urban fabric. Tarraco was founded as a military camp by Gnaeus Cornelius
Scipio at the end of the 3rd century BCE. Then, it went on to prosper as a
city until it became capital of the province of Hispania Citerior or
Tarraconensis. The most important remains are the walls, a fine example of
military engineering dating from the founding of the city; the provincial forum
and the colonial forum; the theatre; the circus; the amphitheatre, with a
basilica in its arena later converted into a Romanesque church (12th century)
in memory of the martyrdom of Fructuosus, Augurius and Elogius; and also burial
areas such as the Paleo-Christian necropolis in Francolí, one of the most
extensive in the Western Roman Empire, with more than 2,000 tombs.