This site is located below the Plaza del Reloj in Calle Villa. Excavations have been left open and the visitor can see the foundations of the roman building.
The upper room was probably a mausoleum with a funeral chapel. Inside the crypt debris has been recovered which would have been a decorative element of the original building. There are fragments of marble slabs whose origin is several different quarries from around the Mediterranean and numerous coloured pieces of mosaic.
This style and type of Roman funeral monument was common across the Roman Empire and is associated with the spread of Christianity.
It would have been built by the owner of a large family villa, which was located to the west of the mausoleum. Foundation of the residential villa's walls and floors have also been excavated alongside salting basins and amphorae kilns used for the export of salted fish. There is also a burial ground of the 2nd to 6th Century AD in the vicinity.
The mausoleum was abandoned and looted in the sixth century AD and was further damaged by the construction of the town's defensive walls during the Moorish occupation in the 13th Century. An interesting collection of Islamic pottery including a jug with epigraphic decoration was found here and is now exhibited in the Estepona Archaeological Museum.
There is another theory though. The height of the octagonal tower and its location, dominating the bay of Estepona, indicate that this could have been a lighthouse. More specifically, a type of tower associated with fishing where a series of functions were performed such as the sighting of the fish, the coordination of the boats, etc.
