Benidorm asks the Ministry for a grant to act on the plot of El Tossal where the street of 'castellum' was found

The Local Government Board (JGL) has approved today a grant request to the Ministry of Education, Research, Culture and Sport to act on the plot adjacent to the consolidated archaeological site of El Tossal in La Cala in which last summer was located and that it would be the main street of the Roman 'castellum' and several rooms and structures of the fort.

The councilor of Historical Heritage, Ana Pellicer, explained that it is a line of grants launched by the Ministry last April for "actions of conservation and protection of real estate of the cultural heritage of the Valencian Community." Pellicer indicated that "we could not pass up this opportunity to continue working in our Tossal and in the future to musealize the site", and for that a "new project" focused on the area of ​​the archaeological site less studied.

In fact, the team of the Department of Archeology of the University of Alicante (UA) made last summer the first archaeological campaign in decades on this site. Some excavations that exposed the street that would give access to the 'castellum', and that opened several hypotheses about the possible location of the door of the Roman fort. Also, several complex structures and another section of the wall were located.

The project presented now is valued at 149,993.34 euros and aims to define and assess "the precise actions to consolidate emergency walls of the rooms" located on the site and the section of the wall that crosses it; as well as to protect "the pavements" and "the main street of the 'castellum'", and to determine "what rooms of those that remain buried want to be excavated".

This action will follow the same patterns as the consolidation recently made in the main plot of the site, where materials very similar to the original ones have been used "differentiating the construction of the 1st century BC and the modern renovation".

In addition, the project includes "doing tastings in the El Tossal lookout" to "locate and identify possible remains of structures" under the asphalt of the viewpoint.

The person in charge of Culture has remembered that Benidorm has also opted for the aid summoned by the Generalitat for the conservation and recovery of the Valencian cultural heritage through FEDER funds. In this case, the project goes through the excavation, consolidation and musealization of El Tossal from the intervention proposal prepared by Archeology Professor Jesús Moratalla, who along with 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 made in the site.

The estimated cost of this project of excavation and musealization of El Tossal is about 480,000 euros, of which half would be assumed by the Generalitat and the other half by the City Council. For the time being, "we are still waiting for this aid to be resolved", concluded Pellicer.