Santa Cruz de Mudela No. 1

Composite object used as baptismal font in the rural chapel known as Ermita or Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Las Virtudes, a few kms. from Santa Cruz de Mudela. Noted and illustrated on 14 June 2013 in a press release of the UCLM (Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha), campus Ciudad Real. The importance of this object is centered on the 'base' of the font, identified as a 'pulvinus' from a Roman funeral monument; the object is made of marble, cylindrical in shape, its sides covered in a scaled pattern with a flat moulding about 2/3 down the side; the 'basin' has the definite appearance of a large mortar, roughly semicircular with for four knobs or handles at 90-degrees around the upper rim, perhaps Roman as well. The UCLM release suggests the pulvinus may have originated in the lost Roman town of Ad Turres.