A journey through the past that is complemented by visits to the site
PEPA GARCÍA | Guillermo Carrión | Murcia
Now that the sound of the arquebuses is thundering in the streets of the city and the smell of gunpowder is in the air for parties that date back to the seventeenth century, it presents a unique opportunity to read the history that this territory has housed since first human groups and that yeclanos have rescued to enrich their heritage. So, if you decide to enjoy these special days that are lived until December 11 in the city, do not stop making a stop on the way to listen to the echoes of the past in the exciting journey that the Archeological Museum offers Cayetano de Mergelina de Yecla (MaYe), small but with essence.
The MaYe is in the House of Culture and the journey through the vital line of this town goes back to the first inhabitants. From the door, the petroglyph that was found in the early 80s impresses. An imposing ritual monument with unique and very spectacular recordings, probably to attract rain or fertility in an area where the passage of cattle has been observed for two millennia. to. C. The deposit that catalyzes prehistory is Cantos de Visera II, in the vicinity of the magical Monte Arabí, a panel that brings together more than 70 figures with the whole range of rupestrian styles represented, the only one on the peninsula. Eminently pedagogical, his speech has tried to explain "with clear clarity the prehistory, something complicated since it is necessary to do it from the rescued tools". However, throughout their first halls they will understand how these human groups lived, established on hills of strategic visibility, or how they transformed the raw materials. We are at the dawn of social organization, from the passage of nomadic societies and gatherers to food producers. This is what the movable objects of the excavations tell us: the several hundred mills found in a site of 10 or 12 cabins speak of a town specialized in its manufacture and an incipient barter trade; also of a collective that, 4,000 years ago, already dominated the metallurgy and made bronze tools: there are axes, stone molds to make arrowheads, ceramic containers for storage ... Technological advances that coexist with basic tools such as punches and bone needles or stone scrapers and other lithic tools. Also, from the cave paintings, it is deduced that the most common animals could be horses, bulls and deer, and the presence of a wader, perhaps a crane, gives clues of the existence of water in that place.
An audiovisual room, where on Sundays they make workshops for families and the distorted sound of a herd of bulls is the soundtrack, gives way to history. In this second sector of the museum, the visitor receives the cabinet of natural sciences of the Pious Schools, with its relevant figures General Cabanellas or Carlos Lasalde. When the Piarists leave the city, they give their abundant collection to the House of Culture. It is the oldest in Spain, the germ of the museum in 1983 and the starting point of the excavations ("since then we have not stopped digging", presumably Liborio presumes), is the collection of Iberian votive offerings from the 17th century. II-I a. C., found in 1870 in the hill of the Saints, the second in importance, along with the one of Albacete and after the one of the National Archaeological, that also was nourished of Yecla. In addition, in this area you will find the most traveling piece, the torso of a warrior of the s. IV-III a. C., which has led to 50 exhibitions. And, as an end-to-end finale, the lady with an acephale and the replica of the great offerress lady, whose original is exhibited in Madrid.
Stairs separate them from Rome, with their star presiding over the Roman triclinium: Emperor Hadrian, who has already seen 20,000 people. In Los Torrejones, this period is focused on, which exhibits an impressive mosaic (4th century) unearthed in 1957, three stucco canvases that decorated the interior of the house and that have been reconstructed after two campaigns collecting fragments. Wading birds painted in detail and portraits of the domine and the domina, marble columns brought from Turkey or bas-reliefs carved in green serpentine marble from Alexandria. All these luxuries, like a bust and feminine head of Viria that appeared in 2014 but has not yet been exposed to the public ("he brought it from Paros, one of the most precious marbles in the empire", Ruiz explains), they count the pre-eminence of the still unknown lord of the village, to whom his wife Viria dedicates a tombstone and who seems to be close to the emperor's political power. "We know that he holds two positions: duoviro, administrator of a municipal territory, and augustal flamen, priest who is responsible for maintaining the cult of the emperor, as well as being his advisor." An information that, after 30 years of excavation, points out the possibility that it is part of a city, still mysterious, that could be the Egelasta that quotes Pliny the Elder. "There are already 3,000 square meters of Los Torrejones defined and only the central part of the building", advances Ruiz.
After this luxurious walk through the Roman Empire, an interactive on Yecla gives way to Hins Yakka, the Islamic site of Cerro del Castillo, thanks to which the researchers have a sample of all the tools of a domestic trousseau of the Almohad period and tardoalmohade. It appeared under the floor of house 5 and has 41 pieces. Especially curious and useful was the information provided by the excavation of a garbage dump, an entire summer of which, along with the handles of a spinning wheel and even eggshells, a lot was learned about his daily life.
You can stop opening your eyes wide open and, if you have still been curious, join some of the guided routes to know 'in situ' the peculiarities of the enclaves that have thrown so much light on the Yeclavian past.
Liborio Ruiz, director of the MaYe and head of the municipal archaeological activity, proudly states that "the discovery of the head of the emperor Hadrian, carved in marble from Carrara in an imperial workshop of the second century, has quadrupled visits in two years" and that was inaugurated by Reina Sofía in 2012. However, the current exhibition discourse of the museum, which begins its story four millennia before Christ with the starry petroglyph of Las Tobarrillas and concludes in the Islamic period, with a nod to the relatively The building that houses it (its eighteenth and nineteenth century cellars) has assets that differentiate it from other museums, as well as valuable treasures taken from the ground: "Each era is associated with an important contemporary enclave," says Ruiz. that can be visited in the guided tours that the museum programs.
