The City Council wants to involve companies and institutions in the project to be carried out by the University of Murcia and the Archaeological Museum
The Department of Culture will resort to patronage to continue the archaeological excavation in the medieval Jewish quarter of the castle, with the aim that Lorca companies and institutions are involved with the City Council in the mission of unraveling the secrets of the historical heritage still hidden between the walls of the fortress, one of the main tourist attractions of the city.
The councilor Ángeles Mazuecos told LA TRUTH, who advanced that her department has accepted the proposal of the University of Murcia (UMU), with the collaboration of the Archaeological Museum of Lorca, to finish the fieldwork in house number 16 of the neighborhood Jewish. The project will be co-directed by the professor of the Department of Prehistory, Archaeology, Ancient History and Medieval History of the UMU, Jorge Alejandro Eiroa, and the director of the museum, Andrés Martínez.
The prospecting is expected to take place in the last quarter of the year with a budget of 16,000 euros. Two archaeologists, three students and a photographer will be in charge of bringing to light the information that house 16 still contains, located on the border with the parking lot of the Parador Nacional de Turismo.
The campaign will delve into the study of house 16 in the Alcalá neighborhood, on which work was already carried out in 2020 with funds from the Ministry
The excavation in the Alcalá neighborhood was resumed in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic, and was financed by the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Community of Murcia. The archaeologists returned to the site eight years after the surveys that discovered the late medieval Jewish quarter, as 16 houses were excavated, as well as other urban elements such as its main entrance, the Puerta del Pescado, the glass workshop and the butcher shops.
“It is interesting to continue the investigation” because “we want to have information about the complete house,” the director of the Archaeological Museum told LA TRUTH. “Now we can do it better” without the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus, since university students will participate in the field study. It is known that the house had a ground floor and a first floor, with the dependencies articulated around a patio, but they want to be clear about the accesses it had and the reforms that took place. The analyzes of the remains of animal bones will also continue to find out how the Jews ate in the Middle Ages and those of wood, coal and seeds.
According to Martínez, the total area of the Jewish quarter is unknown, possibly extending from the hermitage of San Clemente to the Espaldón wall. The central area is occupied by the synagogue and house number seven, which is located next to it and from which much information has already been obtained. There is still “a lot to be excavated” but the work will be developed in the long term.
Beyond the excavation, the investigation of the Alcalá neighborhood continues through publications and laboratory analyzes of the materials obtained by the UMU. Also with doctoral theses on the Jewish quarter and with the course at the Universidad del Mar that takes place every year on medieval archeology in Sepharad.
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