**5. Conclusions**

The N.A.2 was built in the middle of the 1st century AD in one of the largest necropolises of *Bracara Augusta*, which was one of the conventual capitals of the province of *Tarraconensis*. It was discovered under a major archeological intervention work carried out between 2007 and 2009 in the city of Braga. The enclosure was remodeled twice, in the second half of the 1st century AD and in the 2nd century AD. The trapezoidal building is located immediately to the southeast of the Roman road that leads to *Asturica Augusta*, and has an NW–SE alignment. The building's final plan is structured around a dividing wall, configuring symmetrical spaces in which five watertight tanks with *opus signinum* coating were inserted on each side of it, creating a total of ten compartments. In the 3rd century AD, the N.A.2 was abandoned, and an artisan space for glass production was built.

Its unique character, its location in a necropolis area, and its construction near *Fonte do Ídolo* (an indigenous sanctuary of worship and adoration) indicate a possible funerary use or cult that needs to be investigated. The uniqueness of N.A.2, its state of conservation, and the chronology of its construction in the first decades of the life of the Roman city motivated its in situ preservation and the definition of a musealization project, which is still in progress, to make it more accessible and visitable.

The in-depth study of N.A.2, in parallel with the analysis of other similar spaces identified elsewhere in the Iberian Peninsula, still needs to be conducted to refine this first investigation, especially regarding the function of this space.

Concerning the constructive and material aspects of this building, studies are currently ongoing regarding the chemical and mineralogical characterization of the mortars using X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of the walls, as well as the coatings made with *opus signinum*. These studies are being performed by a multidisciplinary team from the University of Minho and the University of Aveiro, and show some similar aspects to other preserved archeological sets (N.A.1) in *Bracara Augusta*, a burial area of the Via XVII necropolis, which consists of five burial graves, and a rectangular enclosure (Figure 3), and is also in the process of musealization (Fragata et al. 2021; Ribeiro 2013).

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, C.B., J.R., L.F. and A.F.; methodology, C.B., L.F., J.R. and A.F.; validation, C.B., J.R. and A.F.; formal analyses, J.R. and A.F.; investigation, C.B., J.R., L.F. and A.F.; writing—original draft preparation, C.B., J.R., L.F. and A.F.; writing—review and editing, C.B., J.R. and A.F.; supervision, C.B., J.R. and A.F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was supported by the Landscape, Heritage and Territory Laboratory (Lab2PT), Ref. UIDB/04509/2020, financed by national funds (PIDDAC) through the FCT/MCTES, and the Geo-BioSciences, GeoTechnologies and GeoEngineering Research Centre (GeoBioTec), Ref. UIDB/04035/ 2020, funded by FCT and FEDER funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness Factors COMPETE and by national funds (OE), through FCT in the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors are grateful to Liberdade Street Fashion Shopping Centre—Cuman and Wakefield, and especially to its manager José Alberto Martins, for facilitating the access to the funerary nucleus, to the Archaeology Unit of University of Minho (UAUM), for the technical assistance.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

#### **References**


Morais, Rui. 2010. *Bracara Augusta*. Braga: Edição da Câmara Municipal de Braga, p. 206.


Ribeiro, Jorge. 2013. *Arquitectura romana em Bracara Augusta. Uma análise das técnicas edilícias*. Porto: Afrontamento, p. 684.


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