Always mysterious, the Lady of Elche who presides over the imposing Iberian room of the National Archaeological Museum will become less so as the archaeological research carried out at the Elche site of La Alcudia progresses. The excavations have now managed to discover the founding Iberian city of the site, as announced by the University of Alicante (UA).
They are researchers from the UA and the Miguel Hernández University, public centers in the province of Alicante, who work on the project “Ladies and Heroes. After the Iberian Ilici” which since 2017 has tried to document the different historical phases of the Ilici site.
The discovery, according to research sources, “allows us to contextualize the oldest phase of La Alcudia, excellently preserved, where the aristocracies who commissioned sculptures such as the Lady of Elche resided.”
“It was known due to the magnitude of some of the finds found, among which the sculpture of the Lady of Elche stands out without a doubt. However, it was necessary to find the architectural remains that would explain the importance of the Iberian groups settled there and that “They allowed us to know what society was like at the time,” explains the professor of Prehistory at the University of Alicante, Alberto Lorrio, director of the research project together with the professor of Ancient History at the University of Murcia, Héctor Uroz.
The investigations carried out since 2017 had already made it possible to discover the wall of the founding enclave of the Iberian site that dates back to 500 BC. C and some of the rooms, belonging to remains of homes from the city’s proto-urbanism. Information that in recent archaeological campaigns has multiplied exponentially, with up to eight apartments currently being known, some belonging to the same house, which are attached to the wall and which represent the first known trace of the Iberian Illici, one of the cities most notable of the Iberian Contestania, an extensive territory between the current provinces of Alicante, Murcia, Albacete and south of Valencia.
The discovery of the founding enclave of the Iberian city of La Alcudia has made it possible to give “context to the Iberian elites who commissioned sculptures such as the Lady of Elche,” says Lorrio, who also assures that “these finds have much more value for the knowledge of the site in historical and archaeological terms, than having found another sculpture of a lady.”
The enclave discovered in La Alcudia is the first metropolis, the first large Iberian city of the Contestania and the oldest. There is no older one of this magnitude,” says Professor Uroz.
One of the most relevant characteristics is the good state of conservation of the remains. The explanation is that “its inhabitants decided to leave that area due to the constant flooding they suffered and chose to move to a higher area, but not before filling in the interior of the old, previously abandoned homes,” says professor Alberto Lorrio.
This exceptional fact has made it possible to document the construction techniques of the first Iberians who inhabited La Alcudia with the use, in the wall and in the domestic spaces, of a mixed architecture with masonry plinths and elevations of adobe or kneaded clay, this technique Also used for the construction of other elements such as benches or supports.
The researchers have found the architectural elements “almost in a perfect state of conservation, while there are few finds of ceramic containers or other material elements of the time, since with the remodeling of the settlement they only left the objects that they forgot inside the homes. or they abandoned,” the researchers point out.
The findings, which have surprised by their monumentality and level of conservation, are in line with “the power that the elites of the Contestania must have had in their time.” The architectural solutions and the size of the wall – for which a height of at least five meters has been proposed – respond to an interest in showing its power,” they point out.
The wall, as had already been documented in past campaigns, has “anti-seismic systems only identified in this site”, which implies prior knowledge of this type of defensive constructions and their adaptation to the territory, says Lorrio, who points out that due to its characteristics and complexity “this construction, as well as the associated urban planning, respond to a preconceived and perfectly planned design, in accordance with the importance of the settlement.”
“There is no other area in La Alcudia where the last and first phases have been identified with the entire intermediate sequence. Here we find the complete evolution of one of the most important deposits in Spain,” says Professor Uroz.
The excavation phase has already finished and now, with the site already covered for its protection, the researchers have begun the analysis phase of the pieces found in the laboratory. In the next campaign, the excavation of the houses will be expanded into the interior of the town, in order to obtain a complete vision of the oldest Iberian phases of the excavated sector.
“A very complex task since it involves approaching the history of La Alcudia in reverse, which in the area translates into the discovery of remains of buildings, burials and powerful garbage dumps belonging to different periods, such as the late Roman or Byzantine,” as It has already happened in previous campaigns in that same sector, in which it has gone as deep as four meters.
In the project “Ladies and Heroes. After the Iberian Ilici” students and graduates of the History Degree and the Master’s Degrees in Archeology and Prehistory (MEPAM) from the universities of Alicante and Murcia participate, and it is financed by the Vice-Rectorate of Research of the University of Alicante and the support of the Elche City Council and the Generalitat Valenciana
