POLLENTIA
(Alcudia de Pollensa) Majorca, Spain.
Town 8 km from Pollensa on the bay of that
name. Like Palma, according to Strabo (
3.5.1), it was
founded in 123-122 B.C. by Caecilius Metellus Balearicus
with 3000 Roman colonists. It was a colonia with some
sort of special status, since Pollentia and Palma were
the only colonies outside of Italy ascribed to the tribus
Vellina. It flourished in the heyday of the Empire, was
partially destroyed in the second half of the 3d c., and
totally obliterated ca. A.D. 435.
Excavation began in the NW sector close to the city
wall, and nothing is known as yet of the central area
where the forum, temples, and main public buildings
must have been. The chief remains now uncovered are
the W city wall, a small theater, and a series of buildings
which have helped in reconstructing the city's history.
The numerous small finds—sculpture, inscriptions, ceramics, and coins—are in the local museum, in Palma,
and in the National Museum in Madrid. The city must
have been of considerable importance, extending from
the open fields of Alcudia to the sea. Four phases can
be recognized.
In Phase I circular structures of roughly hewn stone
and plentiful native pottery marked the pre-Roman Talayot settlement. Phase II was on the level of the foundation of the Roman town of the end of the 2d c. B.C. and included house walls beneath the so-called House of the
Bronze Head, as well as Campanian, Iberian, and pre-Arretine pottery. Phase III, ca. 100-60 B.C., is attested by
a construction of squared blocks in the same location.
Phase IV, lasting from the Augustan period to the destruction ca. A.D. 435, included the House of the Bronze
Head (34 x 8 m). The N section and part of the E area
are preserved, comprising a central peristyle 15 m long,
with five aligned columns and a covered portico, adjoined by living rooms. The House of the Two Treasures (23 x 20 m), also of the Augustan period, has a small peristyle, 7 by 4 m. The rooms grouped around the peristyle are either paved or floored with heavily tamped
earth. Between the two houses runs a street with a portico 3 m high. Among minor finds now dispersed, was some excellent sculpture, such as a veiled head of Augustus.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. García y Bellido, “Esculturas romanas de Pollentia (La Alcudia, Mallorca),”
ArchEspArq 24 (1951) 53ff; id., “Las colonias romanas de Hispania,”
Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español 29
(1959) 458; M. Tarradell et al., “Las excavaciones de la
ciudad romana de Pollentia (Alcudia, Mallorca),”
VII
Congreso Nacional de Arqueología (1960) 469ff; A.
Arribas et al., “Pollentia: I. Excavaciones en Sa Portella,
Alcudia (Mallorca),”
Excavaciones Arqueológicas en
España 75 (1973).
J. M. ROLDÁN