HE MARQ has planned six excavations within the Excavation and Archaeological Research Plan for this year. The project is funded with 130,000 euros and coordinated by the museum director. The initiative was approved by the government team and continues the series of campaigns introduced in recent years by the MARQ expert group.
The schedule features six field interventions across several areas in the Alicante province. It will explore archaeological remains spanning from prehistoric times to the late Middle Ages. The first phase is scheduled for the second half of June, with the remaining activities concentrated between September and October.
This plan has received firm backing from the Vice President of Culture, Julia Parra, who underscored its commitment to sustaining investigations that lead to important discoveries and highlight the Alicante regions that hold significant interest in the Mediterranean basin.
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The plan covers the Iberian landscape around the San Antón hill in Orihuela and the walled town of Tabaya, which connects to the Iberian culture found in Aspe dating from the 2nd millennium BC.
Additional work will be carried out in the Banyets area and Illeta dels Banyets, including El Campello, where the architectural plan for a winery from the Iberian period dated IV-III BC is slated for completion. Manise Tossal will focus on consolidating and museumizing the Popilio Bath from the 1st century AD, with excavations that concluded last year.
Another site in the MARQ program is Mill Head de Rojales, a location that preserves traces of the Iberian period through metalworking furnaces while also offering Late Antiquity evidence from the 6th to 7th centuries AD, including a necropolis with substantial remains.
At Calpe, the town of Ifach will advance the excavation plan by uncovering several graves in the cemetery beside the church, preparing the ground for future interventions, and stabilizing structures uncovered in earlier campaigns.
MARQ archaeologists
Specific directions for these six actions at the state’s landmark sites will be carried out by MARQ archaeologists led by Manuel Olcina and a team including Juan Lopez Padilla, Jose Luis Menendez, admiration martinez, Teresa Ximenez, Eve Shop Owner, and Anthony Guilabert. As in prior campaigns, a cohort of about thirty university students will volunteer on the projects.
Several interventions, notably at Tossal de Manises and La Pobla d’Ifach, involve input from the City Council Department of Architecture under the leadership of Raphael Perez. The current research plan features advanced archaeometric analyses, including pollen, sediment studies, metallurgical work, radiocarbon dating, and faunal analysis, alongside thorough documentation and registration of structures, topography, orthophotos, and recovered artifacts.