The dense maritime material record off SE Sicily offers a vibrant testimony to millennia of cultural interaction between west and east, south and north (fig. 1). Pioneering underwater work by G. Kapitän from the late 1950s onward brought this corner of the Mediterranean Sea to scholarly attention through a series of remarkable shipwreck finds, including several massive stone cargoes at Marzamemi and Isola delle Correnti. Even among these rich finds, one site proved particularly intriguing and would become central to Kapitän's efforts: the “church wreck”, named for its assemblage of partially prefabricated marble and other stone elements intended to decorate the interior of a Christian basilica. First spotted by fishermen and reported to the local authorities, the site was preliminarily surveyed in 1960 by Kapitän in collaboration with P. N. Gargallo. Kapitän's investigations here unfolded intermittently over the following two decades, revealing a striking material assemblage and constructing a broad narrative around the “church wreck”.

This paper presents the results of the geophysical prospection conducted at the site of Meninx (Jerba) in 2015. This was the first step in a Tunisian-German project (a cooperation between the Institut National du Patrimoine, Tunis, and the Institut für Klassische Archäologie der Ludwig-Maximilans-Universität München), the aim of which is to shed light on the urban history of the most important city on the island of Jerba in antiquity.

Meninx, situated on the SE shore of the island (fig. 1), was the largest city on Jerba during the Roman Empire and eponymous for the island's name in antiquity. The outstanding importance of this seaport derived from the fact that it was one of the main production centers of purple dye in the Mediterranean. With the earliest secure evidence dating to at least the Hellenistic period, Meninx saw a magnificent expansion in the 2nd and 3rd c. A.D. It was inhabited until the 7th c. when the city was finally abandoned.

Over the past decade, a number of rescue excavations along Slovenska street in Ljubljana have contributed to knowledge of the funerary landscape of Colonia Iulia Emona's N cemetery (fig. 1), one of its three burial grounds. Slovenska street roughly follows the line of the Roman cardo maximus, heading north towards Celeia. In front of the city gates, the ancient road was lined by grave monuments on both sides, a practice which continued throughout the life of the colony for almost 400 years. Since the first discovery of a burial in 1635, over 3,000 burials have been unearthed in Emona's N cemetery.

The grave under discussion here lies in the central part of the N cemetery, c.60 m west of the Roman road. Excavations (50 m2) were prompted in 2011 by the construction of underground waste-containers. They revealed a further 20 inhumation graves, including some with associated grave goods and coins dating to after A.D. 285, with most dating to the second half of the 4th c. Among them, grave 18 stands out for the quantity and significance of its grave goods (fig. 2). The grave pit (1.90 x 0.50 m, 0.25 m deep) was sub-rectangular, with vertical sides and a flat base. Pebbles were arranged to form an irregularly-shaped ‘wreath’ around the lower part of the skeleton. The poorly-preserved skeletal remains, oriented SSW–NNE, had been cut by a modern water pipe, leaving only the skull and fractured leg bones at either end.

A bronze portrait of a child (figs. 1-4) belonging to the category of “small format” portraits is preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Badajoz (inv. no. 4471). It was found in 1970 in excavations conducted by J. M. Peralta y Sosa on a farm in the Vega del Ortiga, an area east of Medellín in the territory between that town and Don Benito (Lusitania), some 35 km from Mérida (Augusta Emerita). In the excavated area of 40 m2 (fig. 5) were two cisterns and a rectangular well, at the bottom of which was the bronze portrait. The N cistern measured 3.8 x 1.25 m. Attached to its E side was a rectangular (80 x 60 cm) well. A channel in the centre of the S wall of the well was connected to a square (3.45 x 2.9 m) cistern. From its W wall a drain leads into a channel towards the Ortiga river, which flows by some 50 m away. On the E side of the excavation area were two identical column bases which could have belonged to a peristyle. One is a square (90 x 80 cm) block preserving traces of a column shaft 65 cm in diameter, while the other, 3 m to the north, retains the beginning of the shaft. From this point a wall (45 cm thick) faced with stucco starts to head north. The pottery found during the excavation included Arretine, South Gaulish and thin-walled wares belonging to the first quarter of the 1st c. A.D. The site appears to have been part of a Roman villa.