Female statue of Mulva

This exceptional sculpture comprises two pieces found at different times in the Roman city of Munigua (Mulva, Villanueva del Río y Minas). The head was found in 1960, in the pool of the frigidarium at the thermal baths of Munigua, and the torso was found in 1984, 25 metres away in an adjoining room. The head aroused particular interest. It was first thought to be a representation of Hispania, due to the stylistic and iconographic similarities with other models of allegorical sculptures of Roman provinces. After the discovery of the torso, this idea was definitively discarded in favour of the theory that it was a nymph or the figure of Aphrodite/Venus, and formed part of a series of sculptures which stood in the thermal baths. The city of Munigua, located on the site of an old Iberian settlement, was linked to the Roman Empire at the time of Augustus.