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Archaeologists have identified the westernmost known library in the Roman Empire in southern Spain. The site was previously believed to be a temple to Mithras. Unfortunately, all the papyrus scrolls were destroyed. Archaeologists have re‑identified a room inside the Roman villa of Fuente Álamo in Puente Genil (Córdoba, Spain) as the oldest known Roman library on the Iberian Peninsula, overturning decades of belief that it was a Mithraic temple. The room contains classic architectural features of Roman libraries—an apse, rectangular and semicircular niches for wooden shelves, a raised podium, and adjacent rooms likely used for storage or scholarly work. These elements match known Roman library layouts, even though the original books and wooden furnishings have long decayed. Researchers used shape‑grammar analysis (studying architectural layout rather than surviving objects) to demonstrate that the space was designed for reading, study, and preserving texts. This method allowed them to reject the earlier interpretation of the room as a Mithraeum. https://greekreporter.com/2026/07/31/oldest-roman-library-spain/
