The sixteenth excavation campaign at the Pobla d'Ifac excavation site in Calp will end tomorrow after a month of August during which six university volunteers have worked intensively to support the tasks of the preventive consolidation programme in the area. This year's action focused on the documentation and consolidation of a series of tombs in the necropolis of Ifac, located next to the church of the medieval town. The technical team has discovered up to 11 new graves in the cemetery area, bringing the number of already documented burials to 67 out of the hundred or so graves found.
In these tombs lie the mortal remains of the inhabitants of Ifac who, from the end of the 13th century on, governed this town by order of King Jaume II and under the rule of the Calabrian nobleman Ruggero di Lauria, admiral of the Crown of Aragon and Lord of Calp for much of the 14th century. Many of them had come from the north of the Crown of Aragon to colonise the newly conquered territories and forge the pillars of the population of the Kingdom of Valencia, the nucleus of the present Comunitat Valenciana.
The Mayor of Calp, Ana Sala, visited the site together with other members of the town council to see the progress of this campaign. "Every year La Pobla Medieval d'Ifac discovers extremely valuable information about our ancestors and origins; it is a treasure of our urban heritage that we must protect and enhance," she said.
The works promoted in this edition are integrated into the "MARQ Research Plan 2018-2021", together with the institution's Architecture Department, in parallel with the study of the site, and they have followed the strict protocol planned to prevent COVID-19 infection. As in previous years, the participation of students has been possible since 2008 thanks to the cooperation agreement between the Alicante Provincial Council and the Calp Town Hall.
The MARQ team, together with some adults, found a large number of infant remains in the graves, not older than 7 years. The bodies were found lying on their backs, with their arms crossed, wrapped in a linen cloth and without any trousseau or accessories to accompany them on their journey to the afterlife. Only in one case was a bronze ring found, adorned with a crenellated tower inserted into one of the fingers of the buried victims.
A multiple grave has also been documented, consisting of three bodies, whose remains were found in a disorderly fashion. These graves are usually very common in the Ifac cemetery, due to the necessary and constant remodelling to make room for further burials.
Similarly, the tasks of the preventive conservation programme carried out by the Architecture Department of the Alicante Provincial Council have successfully completed the consolidation work on a dozen existing graves in the Ifac cemetery area that were excavated in previous campaigns. The objectives are aimed at preserving the graves of the ancient inhabitants of La Pobla, whom we consider to be the authentic and anonymous founders of Ifac.
The First Vice-President and Councillor for Culture, Júlia Parra, was delighted with the "magnificent work of the team led by the archaeologist and medieval specialist of the MARQ, José Luis Menéndez, whom she encouraged to continue research on one of the most important sites in our country in order to better understand our history".
Parra concluded that "all knowledge opens a door to curiosity and knowledge that we must pursue and deepen in order to better understand our past".