OLD JEWISH QUARTER, PONTEVEDRA
THE RUINS OF SANTO DOMINGO, NOW AN OPEN-AIR ARCHÆOLOGICAL MUSEUM, PONTEVEDRA
PHOTO. SHOWS MILESTONES FOUND ON OLD ROMAN ROADS
mile-stones decorate one of its paths, and a row of ancient coats of arms lines another, while the wall behind them is a mass of ivy, laden when we were there with heavy black berries, that hang like bunches of grapes between the escutcheons. Cannon balls, a cannon that was thrown overboard by the sailors of a Spanish gallion when pressed by the Dutch in 1702, and an old iron anchor sixteen feet long with a ring at one end, were the first objects that attracted my attention; near them was an old stone cross (taken from the old church of San Bartolomé) some twenty-five feet high, and the horizontal tombstone of one of the monks of Santo Domingo which had been found in an old cemetery belonging to the monastery. There was also an old altar covered with tessellated work, and on it a curious statue of St. John the Baptist dating from the fourteenth century. St. John holds a plate on which there is a lamb sculptured, and the front of his tunic terminates with a human hand (very clear in the photograph). The frontal of an altar taken from the church of la Virgen del Camino, and dating from the fifteenth century, had a curiously sculptured representation of the Descent from the Cross; Mary is taking the body of Christ in her arms, two disciples support the head, another supports the knees; the Christ has a long drooping moustache which reaches almost to His waist, and the monk who supports the head has a similar moustache, only a shorter one. We also noted several horizontal tombstones, with emblems upon them indicating the class of work in which the respective persons buried beneath had been engaged.
One half of this museum is reserved for Roman, and the other for Iberian, Celtic, and Sueve antiquities. In the latter I saw several stones that were thought to belong to the period of the Sueves; there were also some rough boulders with strange markings on them thought to be Iberian writing. Near a bed of purple and white irises was a fine stone fountain that formerly stood in the principal square of the town, also a circular font covered with sculpture. The inscriptions on the Roman milestones are dedicated to Trajan, to Hadrian, to Constantine the Great, and other emperors. There are with them a number of aras, capitals, and funereal inscriptions; belonging to a later date there are Byzantine statues, hand-mills, sarcophagi, and numerous objects of antiquity. These are all scattered among the flower-beds, and the whole is like a rock-garden rather than a museum. The ivy-draped walls of the Church of Santo Domingo are covered on the inside with lapidary signs—stonemasons’ marks—I counted some eighty-five of them.