Silvia González Soutelo

2022-2023

Tomás y Valiente fellow

MIAS-UAM

Healing spas in Antiquity: analysis of Roman thermalism from an architectonical and functional point of view

 

Biography

Silvia González Soutelo has a Ph.D. with first Class honours in Classical Archaeology from the Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (USC), awarded with an Extraordinary prize for her doctorate; she has also a Higher Degree in Archaeology from the Universitat de Barcelona. She has participated in a large number of National and International research projects and has taken part in the interdisciplinary European project CROSSCULT (H2020-REFLECTIVE-6-2015).

As a pre-doctoral and post-doctoral researcher, she has been a visiting scholar at numerous International Centers, and she has participated as a member in International archaeological Projects. She was awarded the highly competitive Spanish “Juan de la Cierva“ Fellowship at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; she has been a lecturer at the USC and Universidad de Vigo and a “Torres Quevedo“ researcher from the Spanish MINECO.

Since 2012, she has also been a coordinator of the archaeological project “Marmora Galicia” for the study of the exploitation and use of marble in Antiquity in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula.

 

Research project 

In the study of bathing buildings in Antiquity, there is a significant lack of knowledge about spas using mineral-medicinal waters. These establishments show a series of specific characteristics that must be analysed from an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspective, based on the best preserved and well documented examples in the context of the Roman Empire.

Building on research that has been carried out until the present day (mainly in the Iberian Peninsula), we propose a larger scale project in which a detailed study of the most significant aspects of these complexes, from around the Roman Empire, will be undertaken.

To this end, the documentation relating to these establishments will be thoroughly reviewed, and an international collaboration will be promoted. Furthermore, considering the peculiarities of each territory and working mainly from an architectonic and functional point of view, we will develop a specific methodology to establish an interpretive proposal for these thermal buildings. The final goal will be to foster a European project in the study of Roman thermalism.

 

Selected publications

- 2023. González Soutelo, S. y Romano Martín, S., "Fuentes para el estudio del termalismo antiguo: una nueva propuesta de edición y traducción", en: Pomer Monferrer, Luis; Ioannis Kioridis & Katarzyna Starczewska  (eds.),  Traducciones  de  las  lenguas  clásicas  y  de  los  textos  sagrados.  Hermenéuticas  y  metodologías  /  Translations  of  classical  languages  and  sacred  texts.  Hermeneutics  and  methodologies, MonTI15, pp. 179-205. 2022.

- 2022. González Soutelo, S. et. al., "Las placas marmóreas de San Pedro de Carcacía (Padrón). Nuevas valoraciones interpretativas a partir de su análisis arqueométrico", Archivo español de arqueología, 95.

- 2022. González Soutelo, S. et al., "Capiteles marmóreos tardorromanos y altomedievales en Galicia: primeras valoraciones de conjunto sobre su producción, uso y reutilización", Lucentum, XLI, pp. 259-281.

- 2019. González Soutelo, S., “Shall we go “ad aquas”? Putting Roman healing spas on the map”, ETF. Serie I, Prehistoria y Arqueología, 12, pp. 151-190. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/etfi.12.2019.25939.

- 2017. González Soutelo S., Matilla Séiquer G., “Inventario y revisión de los principales enclaves de aguas mineromedicinales en Hispania. Un estado de la cuestión”, in Matilla G., González S. (eds.), Termalismo antiguo en Hispania. Hacia un nuevo análisis del tejido balneario en época romana y tardorromana en la Península Ibérica, Anejos del Archivo Español de Arqueología, 78, pp. 495-602.

- 2016. Gómez Pérez C.P., González Soutelo S., Mourelle Mosqueira M.L., Legido Soto J.L., “Spa techniques and technologies: from the past to the present”, Sustainable Water.Resources Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-017-0136-1.

 




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