Necropolis of San Pantaleón del Páramo
During the paving works carried out in 2017 a medieval necropolis was discovered in the surroundings of the church of San Pantaleón. It is composed by 50 tombs, of which only the half has been excavated.
Funeral rites found at this cemetery are related to two types of burials: carved into the rock (30) and into a simple grave (20)
Rock tombs still preserve, in some of the cases, the roof built with large irregular limestone flagstones. Regarding morphology, three types can be identified: anthropomorphic, square and elliptical, as the one which remains visible. They are arranged in a parallel line and have little separation between them. There are streets where as many as eight tombs can be identified. This type of tombs dates back from the 8th to the 9th or 10th centuries.
Burials in graves correlate with youngsters or infants disposed without previous order, continuously overlapping existing bodies. This circumstance demonstrates the high rate of mortality before reaching adulthood. These tombs date back to the late Middle Ages in view of the scarce archaeological material found in burial levels: a pair of copper pins and half a dozen coins, some of them unreadable, connected to the reigns of Henry II and Henry III.
The remains of these individuals were directly deposited into the carved grave in the natural soil. They were wrapped in a shroud or sheet. In the case of rock tombs individuals were directly covered with the roof flagstones.
Regarding burial rites, all skeletons are deposited in supine position, head facing west and feet to the east, following a canonically repeated plan of Christian cemeteries. In some cases the decedents have stones on each side of the head as to hold it.
The cover of the sarcophagus was found before the excavation and it is kept inside the bell tower at the present. It is a square block of sandstone, with smooth surface and carved on the inner side with a length of 195cm
There is an upside down, incomplete Roman stele on the western wall, assigned to Early Imperial Roman period. It is a tombstone honouring Lucio Domitio Paterno, aged 47.