The benefit

Linked to a road and whose functionality is probably conditioned by its proximity to said communication route. After the first excavations carried out by the parish priests of Collado Mediano at the beginning of the 1997th century, the investigation rediscovered this site in XNUMX. As a result of the excavations carried out at the beginning of the XNUMXst century, some researchers have proposed that it is the inn Miaccum mentioned in the Itinerary of Antonino.

The archaeological site of "El Beneficio" is located in a dehesa area with oaks and pastures, being an area of ​​livestock tradition.

It is an archaeological site made up of the remains of several buildings and a Roman-era road section. Archaeological excavations have allowed us to identify four unequally conserved construction phases that overlap. 

The oldest construction phase, called Phase I, is formed by the meager remains of several masonry walls, which do not exceed two courses of height, and which seem to be the perimeter walls of two small rooms. This phase is very partially preserved due to the destruction caused by the construction of the subsequent phases.

The remains belonging to Phase II are also greatly altered by subsequent reforms, although not as much as the previous phase. These are walls that define several rooms of square and rectangular size of medium size.

Phase III is associated with the most numerous and best preserved archaeological remains and, according to the materials recovered, it can be dated around the III-IV centuries AD. At this construction moment there are abundant remains of masonry walls stuck with lime, which they delimit 7 stays, of rectangular and square plant, that form part of a building of average size, of which the complete layout is still unknown and which possessed a tile roof.

Integrated in this building we find a hypocaust that, fed by a small external furnace (praefurnium), now disappeared, heated two rooms in the complex. The hot air generated by the incineration of the fuel in the furnace ran under the floor of both rooms, heating them and being evacuated by a chimney, not documented, which would facilitate its circulation. The floor of both rooms was supported by stacks of square bricks.

Next to these two rooms is another quadrangular floor that had a waterproof pavement of opus signinum and, in its southeast corner, a work pool with the same waterproofing treatment, and inside, at the base we can see the characteristic "bocel room" to facilitate the cleaning of the same.

Most of the ceramic material, coins and other recovered objects also belong to this phase. Roman ceramic fragments are the most abundant and are mostly small and quite eroded.

Typologically the common Roman pottery abounds and to a lesser extent the terra sigillata late Hispanic, having been identified forms of type amphoras, pots, bowls, plates and bottles.

On the rubble of the collapse of one of the rooms of this phase are the remains of the most recent construction phase, Phase IV. This phase corresponds to a medium-sized kiln with a circular floor made of building materials from the pre-existing building, whose construction dates back to the 5th century AD, thanks to the appearance of a bronze coin from Emperor Arcadio (377-). 408).

The discovery of El Beneficio occurred as a consequence of the mining exploitation of an existing basalt vein in the vicinity of the archaeological site. The first news of the discovery is the testimony of the pastor of Collado Mediano, D. Ricardo Fernández García, who at 1917, was interested in the removal of the land by several neighbors next to Los Linos stream. The remains found aroused the curiosity of the parish priest who communicated the discovery to the Royal Academy of History through a letter dated 1927. From that moment until the next land removals, some twenty or thirty years passed, when D. Rufino Ortega, also priest of San Ildefonso, made excavations in this place.

The rediscovery of the site of this site was made in 1997 when the archaeologist Jesús Jiménez Guijarro located a pile of earth, tiles, stones and bricks in El Beneficio. In the 2003 this archaeologist started new works on the site and after the first results the hypothesis was raised that the remains would correspond to Miaccum, inn that appears named in the famous Itinerary of Antonino. This theory is based on the presence of the thermal complex in the building, but mainly because of its location near the port of Fuenfría and the proximity of an ancient road next to the Roman building. However, today, more and more researchers are at the inn Miaccum in El Escorial, on the Monesterio estate.

The excavation works necessary for the foundation of the new roof that would protect the site, in the 2014 year, showed that the remains extended beyond the excavated area in the first decade of the 21st century, so it was necessary conduct a new excavation campaign.