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Excavation

  • La Escuera
  • San Fulgencio
  •  
  • Spain
  • Valencia
  • Alicante
  • Elche

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Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • Research (2004-2010)

    From 2004, different actions have been implemented with the objective of gathering as much information as possible about excavations carried out by Nordström in 1960. 2007 and 2008 campaigns were devoted to cleaning, documentation and scrutiny of the building classified as “temple”, in the Terrace B sector. This allowed verification of architectural and construction data that Nordström had already observed and published in their 1967 report.

    Data which had gone unnoticed in the past were obtained through the application of modern archaeological recording systems. Two of them deserve highlighting: confirming the location of the building next to the gate in the city wall and its identification as a possible entrance to a temple/sanctuary; it was also confirmed that it is a unitary structure built on the natural rock, which proves urban expansion of the Iberian city down the mountain slopes towards the marshland during the 3rd century BC. The uniqueness of the building materials used is also worth highlighting (ashlars to build the central walls) and some constructive elements (sections of shafts, two solid square bases, which perhaps supported a tower-like structure or a possible stepped podium in front of the columns). These data open up new and interesting research perspectives.

    Structures which appeared in the high sector of the site (Terrace A) were cleaned and documented during the 2010 campaign. During excavation, these structures were identified as part of a stretch of wall and tower of the settlement fortification, due to their magnitude and design, forming right angles. It was finally established that they form part of the city wall, and the possibility that this structure was part of a complex entrance in a possible second gate is being weighed.

    The possibility of digging a trench outside the city walls, running perpendicular to them was also considered, so as to ascertain or dismiss the existence of a proteichisma along the E stretch of wall. It was impossible due to lack of time.

    This documentation work alternated with geophysical surveying performed in 2004, 2006 and 2009, which confirmed the existence of a dense urban fabric. On both sides of the temple in the lower terrace, both quadrangular structures as well as open spaces such as squares and streets have been documented, thus confirming urban expansion towards lower elevations down the hillside, together with the temple building. Some apparently solid structures, related to the fortification, were also documented in the SE and SW sectors of the site. Surveying of a large quadrangular space, elevated in relation to the rest of the terraces and adjacent to the NE margin of the lower terrace, revealed the existence of thick walls, apparently made of ashlars, at a depth of approximately 3-4 m.

    (translation by Laura González Fernández)

  • Lorenzo Abad Casal, Feliciana Sala Sellés y Jesús Moratalla Jávega 

Director

  • Lorenzo Abad Casal, Feliciana Sala Sellés y Jesús Moratalla Jávega

Team

  • Julia Sarabia Bautista, Víctor Cañavete Castejón, Miguel Benito Iborra y Sonia Bayo Fuentes
  • Museo Arqueológico Municipal de San Fulgencio

Research Body

  • Universidad de Alicante; Museo Arqueológico Municipal de San Fulgencio

Funding Body

  • Universidad de Alicante

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