As of this Friday, January 13, the Soler Blasco Museum de Xàbia hosts an exhibition that you cannot miss. It is the prestigious sample Romans vs Romans; Sertorio and civil wars in the south-east of Hispania. Our coast in this conflict played a prominent role. The opening will be from the 19.00 hours.
The exhibition presents the results of the research project Traces of the Roman civil wars in southeastern Spain. Conflicts and cultural transformation, which has been developed at the University Institute of Research in Archeology and Heritage (INAPH) of the University of Alicante with funding from the Ministry of Economy and Comxicotetiveness.
The project has studied the network of pillboxes or castella built by General Sertorio around the year 77 BC in various mountains of the north coast of Alicante: are the sites of Tossal de la Cala in Benidorm, Altea Cap Negret, Penya d'Ifac in Calp, Punta de la Torre in Moraira-Teulada, Penya de l'Eagle in Denia and Passet of Segària in Benimeli.
His mission was to monitor traffic senatorial ships between Ebusus, Dianium and Carthago Nova and, if appropriate, assaulting them with the help of its allies Cilician pirates. This strategic plan, framed in the civil wars between optimates and popular discovers an Iberian Contestania involved in the military conflict between Romans, as Contestani not only catered fittings installed in pillboxes, but participated in them as auxiliary soldiers. The research concludes that it was this contact between Iberians and Romans, in a time of military conflict, the origin of the subsequent Romanization of the Iberian population.
Through panels and an audiovisual presentation, the exhibition offers an educational tour of the Castella, its walls, the daily lives of soldiers, discovered military equipment at the sites, the action of the Cilician pirates as allies of Sertorio and important way of Vinalopó to the port of Carthago Nova, what excellent exhibition of archaeological pieces pillbox Tossal de la Cala de Benidorm discovered in the excavations of 1943 adds.
Weapons and personal belongings of the soldiers, utensils with which they cooked and ate, a carpenter's saw, medical instruments, coins with the welded and interesting tesorillo of gold chokers Penya de l'Eagle paid, hidden by a soldier in a wall of the fort at a critical time and could never recover. They also highlight the old photographs and illustrations recreating Roman soldiers with their weapons and different historical episodes. It will remain in the library until April MARQ.
