One case of "face reading" andits scientific argumentation. S. Pedro el Viejo de Arlanza, Burgos-Spain

Abstract

The small hermit of S. Pedro el Viejo de Arlanza, located next to the Romanic monastery bearing the same name, poses problems of cultural and chronological assignment, since, in spite of the fact that it has similar characteristics as the nearby church of Quintanilla de las Viñas considered to belong to the Visigothic period, it presents some differences when compared to the Visigothic construction type. Some of its characteristics that particularly stand out are the material, the reused Roman ashlars, as well as a vault over panaches which might not be contemporary with the original construction, but may rather belong to the baroque restoration judging by the decoration it is covered with. The analysis of the stratigraphic elements allowed the sequencing into five construction stages, namely the pre-Romanic, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque ones. This analysis also enabled the distinguishing of the elements remaining from the first construction and their reconstruction in the original form. Yet, what it permitted above all was the formulation of a new hypothesis on the so far considered "Visigothic churches", which consists of the possibility of these churches actually being Mozarabic, built under the Islamic influence between the VIII and IX centuries.