Benidorm will exhibit its archaeological collection in the new room of Boca del Calvari Museum, which will bear the name of Lluís Duart i Alabarta

Benidorm City Council has opened an Archaeology Room at Boca del Calvari Municipal Museum to exhibit permanently its archaeological collection for the first time. A room that will also bear the name of the priest and historian Lluís Duart i Alabarta. This was announced this Thursday by the city mayor, Toni Pérez, in an appearance where he announced that the opening of this new exhibition room will be next Sunday, July 28, at 1:00 p.m., coinciding with the celebration of International Day of Archaeology.

Before that, at 11:30 a.m., the Council will also proceed to name the passage that connects the squares of Castelar and La Senyoria, in El Castell, with the name of Lluís Duart i Alabarta. In this way, the Council will comply with two plenary agreements approved unanimously in 2010 and 2013 and, in turn, "settle a historical debt that this town and this City Council had with the man who was parish priest in Benidorm for more than 30 years, recognising and valuing everything that Don Lluís Duart gave us from his passion for history and archaeology," said Toni Pérez.

This new room will house a permanent exhibition in which pieces from the Benidorm Council's museum collection will be displayed, spanning from the Neolithic to the 20th century, "many of which have never been exhibited before," explained the mayor. Pérez has pointed out that, “after a tremendous amount of work by the Department of Historical and Cultural Heritage headed by Ana Pellicer”, and after the request to the Generalitat to recognise the catalogue of municipal historical assets as a museum collection was approved in plenary session last June, “all the circumstances are finally in place to be able to open this Archaeology Room, something long awaited and longed for, since there are pieces in it that in some cases have been part of the municipal heritage since the 1960s and had never been able to be shown in their entirety”.

Among the pieces that can be seen in this space are many from Tossal de la Cala, and among them, some of those found by Don Lluís Duart, during the excavations he carried out at this site, the mayor added. Toni Pérez said that the fact that this room is named after Lluís Duart gives it even more relevance, recalling the important contribution that this priest made to the municipality both in the field of archaeology, with his excavations and research on Tossal, and in that of local and ecclesiastical history. Regarding the latter, the mayor recalled that “Pere Maria Orts i Bosch himself, historian and official chronicler of Benidorm, when he finished all his work, which he specified in a publication in 1964, which is the ‘Arribada d’una imatge de la Verge a Benidorm’, thanks Don Luis Duart for his work and interest in developing these investigations”.

“Don Luis lived and witnessed, from his priesthood in Benidorm, everything that has shaped a historical reality that has allowed us today, with his contribution, to know who we are,” added the mayor, after which he invited citizens to participate in both events that will take place this Sunday and to “enjoy a legacy that belongs to everyone and that we can finally exhibit.”

About Lluís Duart i Alabarta

Born in the Valencian town of Almusafes in April 1908 and ordained as a priest in 1931, Lluis Duart i Alabarta was assigned to Benidorm as parish priest of the parish of San Jaime and Santa Ana on 14 October 1950, where he lived until his death on 3 January 1983. In addition to his pastoral work, as a researcher and lover of archaeology, he worked tirelessly at the Tossal de La Cala site.

The fruit of this activity is dozens of pieces incorporated into the municipal heritage which form part of the museum collections of Benidorm City Council, to which is added a numismatic collection made up of a large number of silver and bronze coins that span from the Iberian world to the 19th century.