Casa Herrera nr. Mérida

Baptistery in the Visigothic basilica known as "Casa Herrera". According to some sources it has an additional smaller font for the baptism of children but others assign different functions to it. The baptistery is said to have been added more than fifty years after the original construction. [source: www.anthropos.galeon.com] [NB: the thesis that the smaller tanks of the baptisteries were meant for the baptism of children has been much debated and does not appear to have much support at present]. Palol (1967: 78) mentions a part of the site which was seen as appropriate for the location of the baptistery, although at that time the font had not been discovered yet. Palol's later work ([1969?]: 35) lists it with a baptistery. Fontain (1973-1977, t. 1: 391) describes a longitudinal font with two sets of steps, flaked by two smaller piscinae. Noted in Ferrer Grenesche (1975). New excavations in the early 1970s were undertaken by T. Ulbert y L. Caballero. A baptistery may have existed since the original building, but others were added at alater dates apparently. Noted and illustrated in Arbeiter (2003). Noted with some measurements in Ferguson (2009). A study by Cordero Ruiz and Sastre de Diego [aww.academia.edu/512217/El_yacimiento_de_Casa_Herrera_en_el_contexto_del_territorio_emeritense_siglos_IV-VIII] [accessed 20 June 2017] suggests the site here may have existed in Roman times and developed into a complex one through Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages.