The Archaeological Museum of the Diputación de Alicante (Alicante Provincial Council) is working this summer on the 18th edition of the Excavation Plan for the The Pobla Medieval Pobla Medieval d'Ifacin Calp. The research work is being carried out in collaboration with Calpe Town Council and the Regional Ministry of the Environment, Water, Infrastructure and Territory.
This year, the excavations are scheduled to be completed and the so-called "West Gate" of the site, found during last year's campaign, during which the technicians uncovered its collapsed arch, is to be documented. The MARQ archaeologist, José Luis MenéndezThe team is led by a team leader, supported by a group of twelve volunteers Archaeology, History, Art History and Restoration students from the universities of Valencia and Alicante.
The Deputy for Culture, Juan de Dios NavarroHe explained that "these actions promoted by the Provincial Council on our medieval heritage are, at present, one of the most solid references for the study of the formation of our Alicante and Valencian territory in that historical period and also have the support of the Architecture area of the institution".
The so-called "castrum de Calp", an area that nowadays is the municipality of Calpe, turned out to be a strategic territory where settlers from the north of the peninsula settled, which shaped the current urban and territorial structure. La Pobla d'Ifac was built to concentrate the displaced population and provide a backbone for this new conquered territory, and was founded between the end of the 13th century and the first decades of the 14th century, although it had a very short life, as it was abandoned at the beginning of the century.
The first archaeological investigations were carried out in 2005 The so-called North Gate, next to which the large church of Madona Santa Maria has been found, with a bell tower and a very unique civil building, identified as a domus or residence of the members of the House of Lauria and their representatives. This stately building was the residence of the family of Roger de Lauria, Italian admiral and first Count of Cocentaina, among other titles, who served under Peter III and James II of Aragon between the 13th and 14th centuries.
Since its opening, the MARQ has hosted a number of different exhibitions of pieces discovered at the site of La Pobla d'Ifac such as "El caballero d'Ifac", "Los Pilares del Reino" about the Gothic capital of La Pobla and, in 2009, "Calpe. Archaeology and Museum", in which the archaeological discoveries of this enclave were shown to the public for the first time.
