Scientific baptism of Tossal: the global study of the archeological site is published in the AESPA magazine

El Tossal de la Cala site underwent its “scientific baptism” last week with the publication of a global study in the magazine of the Spanish Archeology Archive (AESPA) published by the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). This has been announced today by the mayor, Toni Pérez, and the professor of Archeology at the University of Alacant (UA), Feliciana Sala, director of the successive excavation campaigns together with the archaeologist and professor Jesús Moratalla.
The study, entitled ‘The late-republican Roman fort of Tossal de la Cala (Benidorm, Alicante). Autopsy and reinterpretation of a historical site ', is signed by Sala, her colleague Moratalla, the archaeologist Sonia Bayo and Ángel Morillo, from the Complutense University of Madrid.
As indicated by the mayor, "the article was sent a year ago to the Scientific Committee of the magazine and later analyzed by two evaluators, all giving the go-ahead for its publication."
An article has been written in detailed, in which it is explained “how the information from the ancient excavations of Tossal de la Cala has been recovered and interpreted in the light of the data that have been obtained in the successive excavation campaigns that the City Council has promoted led by the University of Alicante to recover and value a site that was believed to be devastated ”. "Finally," he added, "it has not only been shown that it was not, but it has also provided important information to archaeologists about the military constructions of the time."
Toni Pérez has stressed that “the publication of this global study about our Tossal, the scientific presentation of the site, completes the commitment of this City Council for the recovery of our historical heritage, which is part of our city strategy and an area to that every year we allocate public resources, for which we have managed to attract European funds and special attention has always been paid to the 'castellum' along with the rest of the assets ”.
In this regard, Feliciana Sala has delved into the fact that “one of the assessors of the article on the Tossal has valued as 'very positive' the bet of Benidorm City Council by investing in the recovery of the site and wanting to turn it into an archaeological park, arguing that this work is a model to follow ”.
Sala explained that “previously, in congresses and various scientific journals, we had advanced some details about the result of the excavations in El Tossal, but this article is a global study in which all the data are treated and the architecture of the fort and as a result it gives us information about the people who lived in it ”. Specifically, the analysis of the architecture “has come to confirm what the pieces found in the site were revealing to us, that it is a late-republican Roman fort”, which was part of General Sertorio's defensive network during the time of his wars.
It is, as the study deepens, an example of "small late-republican fortification, unprecedented in the Hispania of the conquest."
AESPA magazine is one of the most important in the country and one of the best indexed at the European level.

Increasing interest in the ‘castellum’
After congratulating the team that wrote the article for this publication "with which their magnificent work is recognized and which gives great prominence to the 'castellum", the mayor stressed that "interest in Tossal de la Cala not only increases among the community scientific research, also among the general public, as confirmed by the numbers of visitors to the site, which have not stopped increasing since last summer ”.
“We are committed not only to bring out the archaeological remains –he recalled-, but also to make the site a museum to bring it closer to the public, and we have verified that this decision was entirely correct, since there are many residents and tourists who come to the 'castellum', as well as the educational centers of Benidorm that are beginning to arrange visits so that the smallest neighbors can learn about the past of their city ”.
Finally, Toni Pérez has stressed that "the publication of this article is an endorsement of all the work that has been firmly carried out" to recover the archeological site, as well as "an incentive to continue working in this line." The next phase is to continue advancing in the musealization of El Tossal, with a project included within the Tourism Sustainability Plan.