The exhibition "La Vila Joiosa, Archaeology and Museum" which opens on Friday (2 December) at the Provincial Archaeological Museum of Alicante (MARQ) will review the history of the capital of the Marina Baixa through 130 pieces from the Historical Heritage of La Vila. The exhibition will show together for the first time pieces from the two museums from the sites of Xauxelles and the Sanctuary of La Malladeta, helping to better understand the sites of La Vila.
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The most striking case is that of the "mosaic of the peltas" (the peltas are the shapes of the shields of the Amazons), found at the site of the Roman villa of Xauxelles, exactly in the corridor leading to the baths of the villa from the 3rd century. The fragments of this mosaic were extracted at different times, so that one piece was deposited in the Provincial Archaeological Museum in the 1940s and later the other in the Museum of La Vila. For the first time, the two pieces of the mosaic will be shown together in the exhibition.
This corridor led to the dressing room of the villa's private baths, where the well-known "mosaic of the fish" was found, which is also on display on this occasion, after its donation to the Museo de la Vila and its restoration.
Another eta. The Museum of La Vila will contribute various terracotta figurines of the Iberian Mother Goddess, the result of donations from private individuals and from the Spanish-French excavations carried out at the site between 2005 and 2009. This collection is completed by the small bronze figure of a warrior, one of the MARQ's representative images. It is a votive offering (an offering to thank or ask the gods for something) of a naked warrior measuring 10 cm, with one hand saluting the divinity and the other holding a spear.
José Belda, then director of the Provincial Archaeological Museum (now MARQ), carried out archaeological excavations at the villa of Xauxelles in the 1940s, when the Museum of La Vila did not yet exist, which is why he deposited some mosaics, decorative carvings on the walls and other objects at the Provincial Museum. For its part, the Museum of La Vila, years later, received an important donation of the mosaics from the villa by its former owner, Aurora Silvestre, and plans to continue research at the site. On Friday, the most important pieces from Xauxelles and La Malladeta will be seen together for the first time.
