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Almoina Archeological Museum

Acces to Almoina

View from the inside

The Almoina Archeological Museum is situated in Plaza Décimo Junio Bruto in Valencia (Spain) and it was inaugurated in 2007.

Introduction

The archaeological remains came to light in 1985, after the city Basilica bought these pieces of land in its project extension of the religious building. This project could not be carried out due to the suspension of the works at the time these first archeological remains were uncovered. That same year, after Valencia City Council bought this land, archaeological works were carried out up to 2005. After a detailed study, the whole building turned into an Archaeological Museum, was offered for sale and was inaugurated by the Mayor Rita Barberá in 2007.

The Museum house the remains extracted from the excavations, either constructive remains or elements of material culture which belong to several monumental buildings date back from different periods, inscriptions, architectural elements, more than a thousand coins and more than five hundred ceramic remains, among others.

Republican period

This place itself is where in the late-Roman republican period in 138 B.C., the Roman city of Valentia Edetanorum was founded with its due inauguration. The place would be very close to the intersection between the cardo and decumanus maximus, the two main communication routes which crossed the city from North to West and from North to South. Here, a well with a probable ritual offering in it was found. The reason for the construction of this well probably was the construction of those main communication routes.

Inside the well, 3.29 metres deep, ceramic pieces like pots, casseroles, mortars, dinner services and containers designed to contain wine, oil, fish sauce, and, perhaps, beer, were found. Together with this, young animal bones —under the age of one— of a pig, a bull, sheep, goat and rooster were also found. After the ritual, they were thrown down the well, incinerated and covered with a solid layer of soil due to their thinking that the objects they used in this practices were considered impure for humans for having been in contact with the divine.

It is known that the first residents of the city were ancient soldiers from wars against Viiriatus, Italics from the South and the centre of the Italian peninsula, thanks to their funerary practises and rituals, as well as to their daily customs.To control and defend their territory, these veterans were given some land, in addition to the establishment of a bridgehead in Hispania for future peninsula conquests.

The new city was created in an uninhabited place that later would become a crossing way. The fluvial channels surrounding it facilitated he defense, the supply of water and the maritime communications. A few thermal baths, a granary, several public buildings and the principal plot already commented (cardus and decumanus maximus) have been identified from this epoch, all of which can be seen in the museum. Also we have proof of a swimming pool that formed a part of the sanctuary’s worship of the aquatic divinities, dated in the 2nd century B.C., maybe to Asclepius. In the western part we find thermal building and diverses tabernae with administrative functions; whereas in the north par be an horreum or a granary.

The granary, the back part can be visited in this museum, was a public building where cereal harvest and other basic necessity products were kept, in such a way that the supply of the city was guaranteed. Therefore it was put in a central place, next to the forum, monitored and with easy access. The granary of Valentia was a building of large dimension constructed with big ashlars of sandstone. The side measured 24 metres and it occupied an insula or complete block. The remains that we can see in Almoina Museum are only a part of what was this great building, consisting in four big boats.

The thermal baths that we can visit are the most ancient in the whole Iberian peninsula. Even in the imperial age they would be reformed and extended, but their importance lies precisely in these primitives, simpler and smaller, but already realized in stone and with long-lasting materials. The public use rooms were paved with ceramic floor tiles in the form of scale. The free-standing banks would be for corporal massages with oil and ointment that then were eliminated by strigil. Whereas the water came from the well in the northern part.

Valentia was destroyed by the general Pompey in 75 B.C., in the context of the Sertorian wars in Hispania. After this, the city was destroyed and was deserted. Archeology at Almoina has witnessed this war destruction, already present in ancient sources, including the discovery of up to 17 skeletons of executed soldiers, accompanied by numerous weapons.

Imperial age

At the end of the reign of Augustus, in an indeterminate time between  5 BC and  5 AC, it seems to be perceived signs of human beings again –animal remains and ‘terra sigilata’ italic ceramic pieces- in urbanization policies of the first Emperor which affected the whole Empire terrain. The refoundation was also carried out with a large ritual banquet of collective nature, where all the dishes and food remains were thrown away the ancient well of the cult of waters sanctuary, in whose room besides this well, we can see remains of sigillata ceramics, common pottery and oil lamps, all dating from the 1st century AC.

Throughout the Roman Empire, Valentia, already with the legal status of Roman colony, reached a degree of urbanistic development , the circus emphasizes among them, that made the city,  with Sagunto, one of the main urban centres  of the region. Thus, from this period we have preserved in l'Almoina the forum, the basilica, the nympheum, the curia.

One of the most important Roman buildings were the roads, since it represented administrative control for the Empire, a greater economic potential to facilitate transport and commerce, above all, fast displacement for the legions. So, the construction of Via Augusta in the 1 century AC, the main artery of Hispanic communication that led from Gades (Cádiz) to Rome, crossing the whole Iberian Peninsula on its east side, coincided with the cardo maximun in its passage through Valentia. Nowadays, it turned into Salvador street. It is paved with huge slabs and below them there was the main sewer. The decumanus maximus was the access  to the forum and through the forum you can access the circus.

The forum that we can see today in the museum and that is just under the square of l'Almoina dates from the beginning of the Imperial Period, in the 1 century AD, was the main part of the urban landscape. It was a large public square where the religious, commercial, political and legal life of the city was carried out. It was also where the public buildings linked to the municipal government were located, statues of the benefactors and temples were raised to the gods. The forum of Valentia had an approximate surface of 6,900 m², it was a great rectangular square delimited by porticos to which it was acceded by a staircase. It was presided over by a temple located on one of the short sides of the square and it was along the portico where the different public buildings were opened, such as the Curia (whose entire ground plot has also been preserved) or the basilica.

The Imperial Age nymphaeum was built where, in another time, there was once placed the sanctuary for the worship of the waters. It was a large public fountain which originally was consecrated to the nymphs —water deities. Afterwards, a complex monumental façade was added. It contributed to the ornamentation of the city. Several pipes poured the water —constantly flowing— to a long, narrow basin where it could be collected.

Likewise, the Curia dates back to the 1st century AD. It was the building where the senate of the city had its seat. This was the reason why it occupied a privileged place in the forum as a whole and showed a crafted architecture. The building was quadrangular-based and it was built on a base of large blocks of limestone. On that base stood the concrete walls probably coated with marble plaques. The pavement was made of opus signinum (a mixture of mortar and mashed ceramics). Next to the Curia there was a similar building, which was very poorly maintained and which is interpreted as a second Curia. This is because Valentia had a double senate: the veterani and the vetera. Next to the Curia, there are some remains of pedestals or inscriptions dating back to the time between the 1st century and the 2nd century AD.

Furthermore, the basilica was a sumptuous public building where the commercial transactions and the administration of justice took place. Besides, citizen assemblies took place there in order to discuss matters of common interest. The basilica had a preferential place within the forum. It was a rectangular-based building divided in three naves, which were also divided by columns. The central nave was the widest and the highest one, consequently the side aisles were endowed with better illumination. The basilica had a room called Aedes Augusti. This room dominated by the statue of the emperor Augustus was used as a court of justice. Besides, there is a pedestal consecrated to the goddess Fortuna and there is another dedicated to the veteran Valentini.

In contrast, the remains of the factory found in the plot belonged to the Late Imperial Age, in the 3rd century AD. It was a building where food products were produced on a small scale. Its main façade faced the cardo maximus and its rooms were set around an open courtyard, in the centre of which there was a pool. To the west of the central courtyard, we find a large room in which there is a structure used for pressing. Amphoras of different origin and contents —oil, wine and garum— were found broken on the pavement as a result of the collapse of the building. The room set below the apse has been identified as a prison —specifically the one in which Saint Vincent Ferrer was martyred. Perhaps this little factory was related to the production and packaging of some products related to the martyrdom and the subsequent Christianization of this place.

The high Middle Ages

After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century,the government of Valentia, became part of the Visigoth Kingdom. During that phase, even though a large part of the rectilinear urban fabric of Roman times and many of their solid buildings are still maintained, the aspect of the Visigothic city is delimited by the Christian influence, the main urban dynamism.

In La Almoina, the main zone of the city, the old forum and its environment, have become in the episcopal ensemble, consisting of the great cathedral, surrounded by churches, palaces, cemeteries and old Roman buildings, which are still standing  and form which would be the main street of the city.

To demonstrate it, tone of the exhibited Museums consists in double Visigoth burial, formed by a couple with their respective trousseau accessories: a gold ring, three belt buckles, two little ceramic objects and two more of blown glass.

Thus, the remains of the baptistery of the mid-16th century were just under of the current edifice. That is the the funeral building known as “San Vicente jail”, which moreover, is part of another museum of the city of Valencia. They were the annexes located to the north and south, respectively, of the head from the cathedral of the Visigoth Valentia. It probably showed a cruciform floor and it was built by powerful walls of Roman ashlars. On the north wall,a system for evacuating wastewater with a downward slope to the street  it is observed , where across to a kind of fountain or a little raft, the Christian believers collected the blessed water.

In addition, it must be taken into account that in the early fifth century, the deacon Vicente was martyred in Valencia. From this date, the holy man, was the subject of special veneration by the Christian community. Over the rubble of the jail, where he was supposed to suffer from martyrdom, an apse was erected in the fifth century. It had horseshoe-shaped and it is the only testimony that we have about this building. Maybe it was a little church what makes that this place was commemorated  as a sacred site. Its scenery would be used as a cemetery in the following centuries.

Despite everything, during that high medieval period, the city of Valentia, would be almost uninhabited, despite the fact that it survived as the city center for being the episcopal see. But it wouldn't be until the Arabic epoch when it would suffer a new stimulation of the urban activity, which is present in the area of excavation that occupies a part of the Islamic wall. This wall, belonged to the fortress of the 11th century, as well as the Roman road network, and other elements of the material culture.

The late Middle Ages

However, it would be from the Christian era on, during the Kingdom of Valencia, when this place would take the name that it remains today. In 1303, the bishop of the city, Ramón Despont founded the Almoina (that means alms in valencian) of Valencia Cathedral, known as Almoina d’en Conesa. It was a charitable institution devoted to the care of people without resources. In 1314 the see was relocated to the house that Bernat Desclapers had in the vicinity of the cathedral. There, provisions were given to the poor, and later, even in the 14th century, these provisions were replaced by the delivery of cinc diners to each person, that means a very little amount of money. From the middle of the fourteenth century on, the room assigned to the impoverished was used as a school of grammar and theology. The building had other functions, one of them, being a jail for refugees who enjoyed ecclesiastical immunity, at least between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Its narrow façade leads to Plaza de l’Almoina, to which it names, and the back of it leads to Calle de Almudín. The building was demolished in the 19th century.

The excavation recovered the ground plot of the building, with a single nave, that crosses the terrain from north to south, with different buttresses and supports for the arcs. In addition, there are also many ceramic remains, dating from the 14th century.

Conclusion

To conclude, in an area of 2.500 m² you can visit and understand a big part of the history of the city of Valencia, with buildings that were some of the most important in a period of nearly fifteen hundred years, exactly in the space where they were built and used.

External links

More infromation about the Museum

Adress: Plaza de la Almoina Valencia

Official website

http://www.valencia.es/ayuntamiento/almoina08.nsf/vDocumentosTituloAux/Introducci%C3%B3n?opendocument&lang=1&nivel=2