The exhibition of the torso of the Iberian Warrior of Monforte del Cid is a milestone for Monforte del Cid Archaeology and a happy event, its first exhibition for the delight of scholars and the admiration of the general public. The collaboration between the Town Council of Monforte del Cid, the Archaeological Museum of Alicante, MARQ and the archaeological company ARPA PATRIMONIO, has made this event possible.
The torso of the Iberian warrior from Monforte del Cid is an exceptional example of Iberian funerary sculpture in Alicante, comparable only to others found in nearby Ilici or in the Iberian necropolis of the province of Jaén. The carving probably belonged to a remarkable tomb of a warrior, and was found in the spring of 2010 in an agricultural plot next to the Vinalopó River.
Known since the 1950s, this vast expanse of river terrace was occupied by an important necropolis from the end of the 6th century BC. The Iberian bulls, close to fifteen in number, the remains of funerary monuments, the fragments of anthropomorphic sculpture found and the tombs unearthed prove the enormous importance of this sacred space, where the Iberians buried their dead and expressed their deepest spirituality through rites and ceremonies, some related to water, until well into the 1st century BC. The rare recovery of its polychromy, intense in some strokes, makes it a source of knowledge of the skilled master who created it, a sculpted remnant of the most notorious Iberian Art and a source of knowledge of Iberian society and its influences and relations with the classical Greeks in this part of Contestania during the 4th century BC. A sincere expression of the society that created it.
