Almost a year ago, Cartagena City Council announced the request for European Next Generation funds for the archaeological excavation and enhancement of the Domus Salvius, a Roman house in a very good state of preservation located in the basement of a building in the University Quarter. Since then, «no municipal official has reported any progress», according to the Cantonal Party (PCAN). «The obvious artistic quality of the site would complement the tourist and cultural offer on housing and way of life in Carthago Nova offered by the nearby Casa de la Fortuna», reflects the secretary of the organisation, Antonio Conesa.
The High Imperial residence is 1,000 square metres in size and is located exactly between Cruces and Alto streets. Its structure revolves around a central garden with a pond that surrounds a portico of Ionic and Corinthian columns of different heights in a dynamic composition that is unusual for residences of that period. One of the rooms has a geometric mosaic, composed of black and white tesserae, on which the word ‘Salvius’ stands out. A term that almost certainly determines the name of the resident family.
The Department of Archaeological Heritage has already drawn up the museum project, which includes a visit to the rooms, paintings and mosaics at ground level and at a height of three metres, a distance that allows a better perspective of the monumentality of the discovery. Audiovisual projections and the image of a backlit sky would recreate the historical moment of this particular place in the Roman Empire in the 1st century. The intervention requires an investment of 1.9 million euros.
This house appeared in 2003 during the foundation works of the building that exists today on top of the monument. Since then it has suffered the problems of the passage of time that have deteriorated its conservation, mainly due to humidity, but also due to the action of the flora and fauna of an abandoned place.