3 - Shops South of the Road

Along the road leading into Conímbriga, on the left-hand side as you enter the ruins, stood a building whose function was essentially commercial, excavated from 1939 onwards. Built at the beginning of the 1st century AD, the building consisted of a series of shops, opening onto a portico that bordered the road. The excavations did not provide information about the type of commerce or crafts that took place here, nor about the use of the upper floor, which is understood to have existed, but of which nothing remains. Of the original building, only the cellars are preserved today, which were accessed through an underground corridor (cryptoporticus). The window system that illuminated this corridor is particularly interesting, of which some vestiges have survived, which can be identified in the trapezoidal cutouts at the base of the wall that separates the building from the house located at the back (House of the Swastika). Originally, the cellars and the entire building formed a single unit, with common access via staircases, the last steps of which were carved into the rock (the rest would have been made of wood). But, throughout its existence, cellars and corridors were divided into autonomous units, private to each of the shops and, irregularly filled in, perhaps due to water infiltration problems. The entire complex was finally demolished to make way for the construction of the Late Roman Empire wall, at the end of the 3rd century or the beginning of the 4th century AD.