Massive Z Similar To 1.3 Evolved Galaxies Revealed

We present the results of TNG near-IR low resolution spectroscopy of two (S7175_254 and S7F5_45) sources belonging to a complete sample of 15 EROs with K' < 18 and R - K' > 5 selected from the MUNICS Survey. Both the spectra show a sharp drop in the continuum which can be ascribed only to the Balmer break. This places them at 1.2 < z < 1.5. Their rest-frame z = 1.2 K-band absolute magnitude is M-K similar or equal to -26.6 (L - 7L*). The comparison of the spectra and the photometric data with a grid of synthetic template spectra provides a redshift z similar or equal to 1.22(+0.02)(-0.07) for S7175_254 and z similar or equal to 1.46 +/- 0.02 for S7175_45. The resulting lower limits to their stellar mass are M-stars(min) = 6 x 10(11) M. and M-stars(min) = 4 x 10(11) M.. The minimum age of the last burst of star formation in S7F5_254 is 3.5 Gyr while it is 0.5 Gyr in S7F5_45 implying a minimum formation redshift z(f) greater than or similar to 3.5 and z(f) greater than or similar to 2 for the two EROs respectively.