Roman Remains of Pollentia, Alcúdia, Spain

Pollentia was founded by the consul Qintus Caecilius Metellus in 123 BC in the strategic location between the bays of Pollenca and Alcudia. It was the most important city in the Balearics duing the Roman period and covered an area of 15-20 hectares.

This area suffered a devastating fire in the 3rd century AD, but the city was not depopulated, since the construction of a fortification in the fifth century AD has been documented in the same forum. In the following centuries, the Pollentia site was partially or totally unpopulated, with the Christian medieval population settling down a bit further north, in the present town of Alcúdia. Excavations, since the 16th century, but especially since the beginning of the 20th century, have occurred mainly in the area of Sa Portella (a residential district), Camp d'en França (the city forum and the tabernae), and in the Roman theater.

There is also a museum, the Museu Monografic de Pollentia in the centre of Alcudia (by the church) which displays many of the objects found on the site.

References:

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User Reviews

Billy D (4 years ago)
Worth a visit - well laid out walk with good information - a nice afternoon walk and worth the 4 euros entrance

Simon McIntyre (4 years ago)
Nice place to visit. All well laid out with descriptions. €4 to enter. The site is a lot bigger than you can see from the entrance and roads around. Worth a visit Took about 1.5 to walk around

Prasanna Narayanan (4 years ago)
Not fully excavated but it's still worth visiting. Very good views and detailed information each place inside is provided. In some places they have provided a artist's impression of how the place would have looked like. But it is missing from others. A suggestion would be to create a complete 3D view of the whole area.

Szymon M. (4 years ago)
Amazing, rare and easily accessible atraction for all archaeology lovers. Well preserved roman settlement with forum, theater, cemetery and lots of other treasures still hidden beneath the ground. Just one con - it's opened only until 2:30pm at winters.

Kevin Jones (5 years ago)
An amazing site. Only 4 euros to enter, it is fairly large and there are lots of information points written several languages, you can spend as long as you like here, but a quick visit without a good look round will take about 15-20 minutes, you can get really close to the ruins and there is a small museum behind the church opposite included in the price. Although I believe most of the artifact's can be seen in the main museum in palma ( I may be wrong). Just along from the museum is the remains of the city fortification walls which are really quite intact and worth a visit. There are some lovely shops and great places to eat in some beautiful, quaint, old streets. We really enjoyed our few hours here.

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