**1. Introduction**

The archeological nucleus of "Rua do Raio" was identified during an archeological intervention carried out in Braga, between 2007 and 2009, in the Post Office block (CTT) denominated "N.A.2", directed by the Archeology Unit of the University of Minho (UAUM), under the urban rehabilitation of the CTT building (Martins et al. 2010). The work carried out allowed the exhumation of several notable archeological remains, including a necropolis area associated with a road that connected *Bracara Augusta* to *Asturica Augusta* and with a glass workshop. The N.A.2 (Building R05) occupies an area of roughly 200 m2, in the southeastern part of this CTT block. The collected data point to its foundation in the beginning of the 1st century AD, in the northeast of the ancient Roman city, followed by two reforms in the second half of the 1st century AD and in the 2nd century AD. The building was abandoned in the 3rd century AD.

This funerary/cult building is a remarkable construction, without any parallel in the city, is part of the city's oldest archeological remains. Its scientific and patrimonial value led to an in situ preservation and later to a musealization process and integration in the new construction, which is still in progress.

Its function is still unknown; however, the "Idolo Fountain" (*Fonte do Ídolo* in Portuguese) (Garrido Elena et al. 2008; Tranoy 1981) in its vicinity, which is an important Romanized indigenous sanctuary, and its enclosure in a necropolis area, suggests a connection to funerary or cultic practices.

This work is structured in three parts: in the first part, an archeological framework of the subject under analysis is carried out, with a focus on the components of funerary and religious architecture; the second part emphasizes the built sequence transformation of

**Citation:** Braga, Cristina, Jorge Ribeiro, Luis Fontes, and Ana Fragata. 2023. Interpretation of Funerary Spaces in Roman Times: Insights from a Nucleus of Braga, NW Iberian Peninsula. *Religions* 14: 1185. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel14091185

Academic Editors: Fátima Matos Silva, Isabel Borges and Helena Albuquerque

Received: 1 July 2023 Revised: 11 September 2023 Accepted: 13 September 2023 Published: 17 September 2023

**Copyright:** © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/).

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the building under analysis (N.A.2 or Building R05); the third part focuses on the N.A.2 construction process, architecture, materials, function, and musealization process.
