A rare ceramic vessel found at a Roman villa in northeastern Spain suggests the private cult of the eastern god Sabazios reached rural communities during the reign of Augustus.
3D reconstruction of the Sabazios vase piece, which is 160mm long. Credit: Universitat de Girona. From Bouzas Sabater et al., Antiquity (2026)
Researchers from the University of Girona studied several fragments from the Roman villa of Collet, located above the Bay of Palamós. The pieces formed part of a large vessel about 23 centimeters wide. Its most striking feature was a horizontal handle shaped like a two-headed serpent.
Small semicircles carved across the snake bodies imitate scales. Circles also decorate the vessel rim, showing the pot had a role beyond ordinary household use. Based on its form and decoration, the researchers link the vessel to Sabazios, a god whose worship began in Thrace and Phrygia, regions covering parts of modern Turkey and the Balkans.
The find is unusual because evidence for Sabazios worship in the Iberian Peninsula is scarce. Earlier finds from nearby sites, including Emporiae and Tolegassos, point to the same cult during roughly the same period.
Researchers used several methods to study the fragments. They examined the vessel’s shape, decoration and archaeological setting, along with the clay itself. Optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction helped assess the ceramic paste and its possible origin.
The tests didn’t identify a clear production site. Some features of the clay suggest the vessel might have come from North Africa rather than Europe. If so, the object itself points to the movement of people, goods and religious ideas across the Roman world.
Plan of villa architecture from the Augustan period. The red circle marks the location where the ceramic fragment decorated with a snake was found, just outside the east wall of the villa. Credit: Universitat de Girona. From Bouzas Sabater et al., Antiquity (2026)
The vessel also has a firm date. Archaeologists found the fragments in layers linked to the early history of the villa, along with pottery such as wine jars and cups. The evidence shows the vessel was broken and buried during the reign of Emperor Augustus, between 27 BCE and 14 CE. The pot therefore dates to the Augustan period or shortly before it.
This makes the Collet vessel one of the earliest rural examples of this type of serpent-decorated pottery in Iberia.
Snakes were closely tied to Sabazios worship, though snake imagery appeared in other Roman cults as well. The link to Sabazios gains strength from a bronze object found at nearby Emporiae.
Archaeologists previously found part of a portable bronze triptych in an Augustan-era or early first-century tomb at Emporiae. Two plaques survive, including the central panel, which shows Sabazios surrounded by symbols linked to his cult.
Emporiae lies about 40 kilometers north of Collet. The close distance between the sites offers one possible route for the spread of the cult into the countryside.
The researchers suggest a traveling priest might have helped carry the cult from the eastern Roman provinces to Emporiae. From there, worship could have reached nearby rural settlements such as Collet.
The Roman villa itself began as a rural settlement in the late second or early first century BCE. Its earliest buildings included a wine cellar and warehouse. A larger villa followed during the first decades of the first century BCE.
During the Augustan period, the owners added features including a bread oven, kitchen and small bath complex. The vessel belongs to this early stage of the site’s development.
Later, near the end of the first century CE, the original villa was demolished and replaced by a much larger building. The new villa had many rooms, a central courtyard and a large portico facing the sea. Some rooms later received mosaics and other costly floors.
The Sabazios vessel shows how religious practices could move beyond major cities. Even a small and less widely known cult had links across distant parts of the Roman Empire.
For the researchers, the Collet find suggests such cults weren’t restricted to major urban centers. Their followers and objects could move through wider networks, bringing foreign religious practices into private life at rural sites.
Publication: Bouzas Sabater, M., Burch Rius, J., Moner Coll, E., Roqué Pau, C., & Vivo Codina, D. (2026). Of snakes and gods: early evidence for the cult of Sabazios in the Roman villa of Collet. Antiquity, 1–13. doi:10.15184/aqy.2026.10420