The Archaeological Museum of Alicante started today at the site of the Tossal de ManisesThe summer excavation campaign at the Ibero-Roman city of Lucentum. Through this project, which is directed by the technical director of the Alicante museum Manuel Olcina and which will run until the end of July, the MARQ aims to to obtain more precise data on the development of this enclave in pre-Roman times and its destruction. The work will also serve to train around twenty students from the University of Alicante and the UNED in Elche.
The excavation campaigns carried out in recent years in the Tossal de Manises have made it possible to identify a first urban settlement, dated to the last third of the 3rd century B.C.E..C. whose construction is linked to Carthaginian interests in the Iberian Peninsula. Its creation, linked to the foundation of the nearby Carthago Nova (Cartagena), is part of a socio-political context that led to the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, between 218 and 201 BC.
After the construction of the wall that the enclave is so close, the interior of the site was developedThis was the time when the two dwellings that are the subject of this campaign were erected, delimited by large open spaces and articulated by streets, such as the one recently discovered under the Roman forum of the city. Both were destroyed in the course of the war, during Rome's advance to expel the Carthaginians from the Iberian Peninsula.
Tossal de Manises
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The Tossal de Manises, declared Historic-Artistic Monument in 1961, is located in the city of Alicante and has a long history of research, initiated in the year 1776when Antonio Valcárcel and Pius of Savoy -Count of Lumiares - carried out the first known excavation works.
During the following years, the enclave was sporadically excavated until, in the early 1990s, the MARQ began a programme of recovery and enhancement of the remains that culminated in the opening to the public of what has been the the first archaeological park in the Valencian Community. The quality and accessibility of its facilities, which enabled it to be a finalist in the Telefónica Ability Awards in 2012, make it easy for the public to visit the excavations, located next to the passageways, which can be explained along with the new features and advances produced during the work.
