A Roman temple has been discovered at the Saints Doctors site in Gironès.

BarcelonaArchaeologists from the University of Girona (UdG) have located the platform of an ancient Roman temple at the site of the Santos Médicos in Sant Julià de Ramis, in Gironès. According to the researchers, the structure was built between 130 and 120 BC on the remains of an Iberian settlement, allowing them to accurately date this monumental construction to the Roman Republican era. With this discovery, the archaeologists conclude an excavation campaign that began in 2011, which has brought to light a wide range of archaeological remains spanning from the Iberian world to the medieval period.

According to statements made to ACN by Jordi Vivo, co-director of the excavation, the platform was formed by two parallel stone walls and supported "a large Italic temple." Although no elements have been preserved in their original location, fragments of columns, capitals, and decorated blocks of sandstone, a stone brought specifically from the area around Girona, have been found. This circumstance confirms, according to Vivo, the monumentality of the religious building. The co-director of the excavation, Neus Coromina, believes that the high quality of the construction material motivated "subsequent occupations to dismantle it for reuse," first by the Romans themselves, who used it to build a fortress, and later by the Visigoths, who built a small village with a dozen houses.

The dating has been possible thanks to the remains of the Iberian settlement buried beneath the platform, which have emerged during the work in recent years. Italic and Punic amphorae, common and table Iberian pottery, local products such as Emporitana gray pottery, and even older fragments of Attic Greek pottery and pottery from Roses workshops have been identified. According to Vivo, this complex confirms that the temple was built "at a very specific time, between 130 and 120 BC."

The Santos Médicos site is an example of continuous occupation of the territory. From the 6th century BC, the mountain hosted an Iberian settlement that grew significantly in the 4th century BC. With the arrival of the Romans, the construction of the platform destroyed many of the houses. Centuries later, in the 4th century AD, the temple material was reused to build acastellum–a small military fort– during the Imperial period, and new dwellings were still being built in the Visigothic period. Already in the 8th century, with the arrival of the Arabs to the Peninsula, the site was briefly abandoned and reused as a necropolis. For centuries it functioned as a parish cemetery, until well into the 20th century, when it was moved a few meters lower on the same mountain.

One of the factors that explain this constant occupation is the strategic location. The foothills of the mountain are crossed by the Ter River, navigable at the time, and by the natural corridor through which the Via Augusta passed. This combination made the site a privileged control point for the territory. "From Sant Julià Mountain, not only could you monitor the Girona area, but also the Empordà plain," Coromina explained to ACN, who also highlighted the importance of the location in understanding the historical continuity of the settlement.

The discovery of the Roman platform thus culminates more than three decades of research, which began after the discovery of large stone blocks in the municipal cemetery raised suspicions that ancient structures lay hidden underground. Over time, the excavations have confirmed not only this intuition, but also the significance of the site as a key space for studying the transition between the Iberian and Roman worlds in the Girona region.