Resumen de Notes on local stone use in Colonia Patricia Corduba (Dórdoba, Spain)
This paper presents an overview of the stones used at the Roman town of Corduba, with special focus on the non-imported material that were employed to build and to elaborate all sorts of architectural elements. Even though many of them still are to be characterized and provenanced, it is already possible to see trends and changes during the first centuries of the Roman dominion. During the early years of the town, in late Republican times, local soft and easy-to-carve limestones, sandstones and calcarenites were widely used, usually covered by stucco. After the Civil Wars (49-45 BC) and within a large-extent building process, another local stone began to be employed; it is a mudstone from the Cambrian Linares-Pedroches Formation, commonly known as Mina stone, of which there are three varieties: violet, black and gray. This stone, which takes a polish and is more resistant to weathering than the limestones, sandstones and calcarenites, provided a new image to the town's architecture. Nevertheless, during the early years of the empire, the arrival of imported materials (such as Luni marble, for example), which were more valued from the architectural and decorative point of view, relegated the local stones to a secondary role. Indeed, public works and private projects of the local elite used these new materials as a symbol of their close relationship with the Roman elite and the imperial power
