2-370-331 - Samuel Magal/Sites & Photos/Heritage Images

The inner courtyard of Servilia's Tomb (Tumba de Servilia), Carmona, Spain, 2007. The Tomb of Servilia was probably the most monumental tomb in the necropolis. It reproduces a Hellenistic style building with a gallery or porticoes set around a central courtyard, of which the northern wing has been preserved. Here, the sculpture of Servilia (now in the Carmona Museum) was found. After the gallery, there is a short passageway, with the threshold and traces of the doorway that once enclosed the antechamber, an ingenious architectural device given the complexity of the layout of an open space that leads into a tiny, isolated funerary chamber. All this was enriched by a series of mural paintings alluding to funerary rites and symbols. It is a unique building in funerary architecture, and a symbol of the social pre-eminence of a family linked to the exercise of power in Carmona.