Benidorm aims to achieve European funds for the museum project of the 'castellum' of Tossal in La Cala

The local government wants to address the museum project of the archaeological site of El Tossal in La Cala in 2018, and for this the mayor, Toni Pérez, will propose in the next plenary session that the City Council will attend the grants called by the Generalitat for the conservation and recovery of Valencian cultural heritage through FEDER funds.

To aspire to these subsidies, municipal technicians have drafted a project of excavation, consolidation and museum project of El Tossal from the proposal of intervention prepared by the professor of archeology Jesús Moratalla, who along with the professor Feliciana Sala has been in charge of the five excavation campaigns that the University of Alicante (UA) and the Department of Historical Heritage have done.

The estimated cost of this excavation and the museum project of El Tossal is around 480,000 euros. According to the rules of the call for grants, in case the project is selected, the Generalitat would assume 50% of the main cost - about 200,000 euros -, while the City Council would pay the remaining 50% plus the corresponding VAT - about 280,000 euros-.

The mayor has indicated that the request of this grant coincides "with the works of consolidation of the site that at the moment we are carrying out in El Tossal entirely with municipal funds". An action that has involved an investment of 104,805.32 euros and that "is the previous step for the museum project of our 'castellum', dated in the first century BC and almost probably the best preserved of the entire Levantine coastline." In fact, "it is offering the archaeologists very important information about Roman military constructions of the period of the Sertorian wars".

This morning, the mayor next to the councilor of Historical Heritage, Ana Pellicer; staff of the department of Historical Heritage and the area of ​​Engineering; and the director of the excavations have visited the site to see how these works of consolidation of the 'castellum' are being developed.

These works contemplate reversible actions to secure the walls of the visible rooms and the canvas of the wall located four years ago, as well as protect the pavement of the rooms. Thus, it is going to re-create the existing walls, using materials that simulate the originals although differentiating the current part and the archaeological part. In addition, the gaps in the pavement will be filled and later made up with a layer of colored gravel to differentiate the rooms.

The mayor recalled that this work was "essential and cannot be postponed to stop the deterioration of the remains and ensure their conservation", since the walls of the 'castellum' were at risk of collapse because of being in the open air.