Ever since Estácio da Veiga, at the end of the 19th century, identified the ruins of the Roman city of Balsa under Torre d’Aires estate (Luz de Tavira-Portugal) and its surroundings, the scientific questions about this Roman city have been constantly increasing. Despite the historical importance of this city, referenced in classical literature, the archaeological knowledge about it remains very scarce due to the difficulties around implementing any durable scientific research projects. Therefore, much of that written about the topographical features and configuration of the city has no unequivocal scientific support. Finally, 2019 saw the launch of this ongoing project “Balsa, searching for the origins of the Algarve”, which aims to ascertain the main features concerning the city’s extent and configuration, mainly through non-invasive methods. Since 2017, geomagnetic and geo-radar surveys have spanned several hectares and successfully identified many traces of the Roman city while discarding the existence of others in certain locations. In the last two years, the geo-radar surveys have intensified and established the boundaries to the Roman city as well as parts of its layout, remnants of buildings, and even fossilised agricultural crops in addition to other geophysical anomalies, whether or not they are subsequently confirmed by diagnostic pits.

The necropolis of El Toro is characterised as a space of prolonged use in northern Oretania. Several important archaeological finds were made in 1975 and 2012, leading to the excavation of six test pits in 2017. Based on the existing legacy data, an extension of the state of knowledge was carried out by combining several geophysical tools. The geophysical tools chosen for this sample consist of a combination of data from two different georadar systems, to which data from a magnetometer survey is added. A series of post-processes are applied to the preliminary results to improve the visualisation and interpretation of the data. The combination of these techniques used at the site is an improvement that helps us to understand these spaces and their interaction with the historical landscape of La Mancha.

Um dos problemas que se coloca na investigação das cidades romanas provinciais é a determinação do seu perímetro a partir do registo de superfície. Com efeito, nem sempre é fácil a partir de dados de prospeção distinguir o pomerium da cidade, das construções que se edificaram na sua envolvente como acontece com o municipium flávio de Balsa. A cidade romana de Balsa, situada no sul da Lusitânia, tem frequentemente sido referida como uma importante e extensa cidade, cujos vestígios foram em grande parte destruídos por trabalhos agrícolas. No entanto, apesar de tentativas de reconstituição desta cidade portuária, as escavações realizadasforam muito limitadas e pontuais e nunca houve no terreno uma investigação sistemática. Com o projeto, Balsa, Searching the origins of Algarve, procurou‑se, através de intensas prospeções geofísicas não invasivas e sondagens pontuais, esclarecer a dimensão da malha urbana e grau de preservação da antiga urbs, de que se conhece um extenso e rico espólio oriundo das suas necrópoles e uma interessante epigrafia honorífica e funerária. Osresultados obtidos têm permitido verificar que se trata de uma cidade muito mais pequena do que se pensava, mas com um importante conjunto de villae em seu torno que foi frequentemente confundido com a extensão da sua malha urbana.

The ancient city of Sabora, mentioned by Pliny, is also known through an epigraphic document, sent to the Saborenses by the emperor Vespasian (CIL II 1423), which states the authorization for the relocation of the urban center, from its pre–Roman site in height to a location in plain, more suitable to the development of civic forms and Roman urban patterns. If the location of the original oppidum in the Malaga municipality of Cañete la Real is suggested thanks to toponymy and archaeology, it has not been until very recently, thanks to geophysical explorations, when it has been possible to advance in the identification of the site and the vestiges of the Flavian municipality of Sabora, born as a result of the imperial approval, with the remains preserved in the archaeological site of El Carrascal. In this contribution we present the urban data obtained on the settlement by our team, through the use of a multichannel georadar, and we offer an interpretation of the results, arguing about the urban or villa character of the documented archaeological remains.