La Bastida de les Alcusses

La Bastida de les Alcusses is an Iberian city of the 4th century BC located near Mogente/Moixent, Valencia. It is considered to be one of the principal Iberian archaeological sites of the Valencian Community due to its sudden abandonment and good preservation. The site is located 741 metres above sea level (and 200 metres above the valley floor) at the southwest end of the Serra Grossa. The site covers over 4 hectares and is 650 metres long and 150 metres wide. The site is now an archaeological park, surrounded by pine forest and bush but accessible by road.

The site was first described in 1909 by Luis Tortosa. The first archaeological excavations were begun in 1928 by the newly created Servicio de Investigación Prehistórica of the Valencian Community. Four campaigns were carried out between 1928 and 1931.

250 rooms were excavated and a number of important artefacts were recovered, including the Guerrero de Mogente, small lead plaques with inscriptions in the Southeast variant of Iberian, and weapons and jewellery. In newspapers of the time, the site was described as a "new Pompeii".

Further excavations have been carried out in the 1990s and this century.

The site is walled, with walls more than 3 metres thick at the most vulnerable points. Four gates give access to the interior of the site, three at the western end and one at the eastern. Two towers extrude from the wall at the western end, where the main gate is located. The gatehouses all contain internal benches, possibly guard posts or spaces for controlling the passage of goods. The gates themselves were wooded, reinforced with iron bands. The stone lower half of the gates and walls is still in existence while the upper half, which would have been built from adobe bricks and included a walkway, is lost. At the western end, an additional external area may also have been more weakly fortified, perhaps as a refuge for people in the surrounding area. The secondary gates at the western end were blocked up during the occupation of the site, presumably to improve defensibility.

The buildings are organised around a central street that runs from east to west through the middle of the town. Secondary streets run perpendicular to this main street and some open plazas were left without buildings. A communal granary is found in the centre of the site.

The houses are of different sizes, ranging from 20 to 150 metres squared. The houses have the same building technique as the walls, with adobe bricks above a stone base. The walls would have then been whitewashed and sometimes even painted. The houses are of a single floor but the flat roof (at a slight angle) was accessible and may have been used for some activities.

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Wikipedia