The archaeological excavations required before constructing the museum contributed interesting remains of artefacts and structures related to different aspects of the town.
These remains make up another room in our visit to the museum, with the added attraction of placing the visitor in the archaeological context of Roman Mérida, whose artefacts were seen in the other rooms.
Adjacent to the modern structure is the first part of the ruins that have been preserved. It is a stretch of the hydraulic conduit “San Lazaro” which starts at a water tank situated next to the “House of the Amphitheatre” and goes toward the central area of the town, probably towards the forum. The conduit is made up inside of a specus or canal coated with hydraulic mortar half way up the wall. This wall is made of stone bonding and covered with a half-barrel vault of stone slabs. In the far corner a spiramen or register for cleaning the canals can be seen. A metal grill has been placed in the floor tiles of the corridor so that visitors can look at the lower structure. Here a new tunnel begins which connects the museum with the theatre and the amphitheatre in order to make the visit to the complex easier.
Going down to the end of the corridor on the left there is a door that goes to the archaeological area. In the patio we come across part of a Roman road, which went out of the town through a small gate in the town wall and connected with the road that led to Corduba (Cordoba) by way of the eastern necropolis. The access to the ruins is a stairway that makes up for the difference in height.
Once at the lower level what we find marks the limits of a typical district outside the walls with the perfect symbiosis of the necropolis and homes.
In the foreground to the left, a house is attached to the retaining wall. Remains of its peristyle can be seen. It originally had a garden with a well in the centre and canals around it. Other spaces are connected to the patio, which have pictorial remains.
In front of this house there are two sepulchres. One is built with granite blocks at its base and covered with large ashlars. The other one has five rectangular burial cavities that are covered with a lowered vault decorated with stucco and an inscription bearing the names of some of the deceased.
Towards the left, the mansion previously mentioned seems to continue, although it could also be part of another one. Its walls represent two decorative phases. The first one -torn down intentionally to build the second one on top- where plants and wading birds can be seen against a yellow background, dates back to the end of the first century or the beginning of the second century A.D. The newer one has geometrical figures imitating marble baseboards, crustae, and probably dates from well into the third century A.D. Thus these vestiges document the physical development of a local house situated in an urban environment.
In the back, four white marble columns belonging to the peristyle of another home have been preserved. In the middle there is a pond, the bottom of which is coated with mortar. The basic pattern seen before is repeated.
The openings in the crypt’s wall are covered with a grillwork to separate the front space that is used to store large pieces.
To the right at the back, there are stone and rubblework walls from a late period. Some of them have marks left by water because in the sixteenth century these conduits substituted the Roman “San Lazaro” system, which had been unused for a time.
Further on, on the far right of the road other domestic structures stand one against another. Four rooms are built around a corridor. The larger main room has a tiled floor and its walls are decorated with paintings that imitate different qualities and tones of marble.
The entrance to the room was marked with a central springer arch resting on two columns and other possibly supporting arches which don’t fully complete a semicircle. Pictorial decorations with plant motifs were found on the inside of the arch and on the doorposts.
The spatial organization and the materials that the excavation provided (pottery, bronze pieces and holy water fountains decorated with chrismon) lead us to conclude that we have before us an outstanding building with possible Christian connotations.