By: giribet
Image: Josep Giribet ⧉
License: Creative Commons Attribution ⧉

Uploaded: 24 Jan 2019
Last Updated: 24 Jan 2019

840 megapixels
25,910 x 32,408 pixels
86.4 in X 108.0 in at 300dpi
5 pixels per inch

In Catalonia, 130Km from Barcelona, near the town of Arbeca, in the Garrigues district, an Ilergetian fortress constructed in the 8th century B.C., an exceptional historical and archaeological complex, unique in this country. The excavation works started on 1985, without spectacular perspectives. The zone where the archaeologists were working offers the hoped information: in the peninsula there were Iberian tribe settlements. In that moment, the archaeologist's work date what they found on the year 325 B.C. The settlement, on 1985, occupied just a little zone between to cultivated lands, where all the rocks, that farmer found, where accumulated. When the archaeologist from the History Department of the University of Lleida saw the relief on that zone, and the pieces of earthenware tools and mills that where found every time that some movement was done, they encourage themselves to continue digging around. And they discovered a unimaginable treasure: a ruins from a civilisation with architecture and urbanism knowledge, a ruins that tell us the history of a group of persons that knows about agriculture and farmer, but in the first stage of the iron era. The Vilars' stones related that 2800 years ago, some men and women settle in this land. They analysed the surrounding, and everything was good: the land, the forest, the food… They didn't know yet, but they were preparing for a very long stay. On their homes, the fire burns during 400 years. They built walls, towers, houses, furnaces, squares and streets, all encircled by a wall that protect them from the invisible enemy. And one day, they closed the only gate: the East Gate. The findings discovered in that moment situated us in the year 750 B.C (that could be possible by the dating system C14) Since 1985, the Fortress of Vilars has been the reason of reunion, year by year, of a group of people that had work, with excitement, this land. Arbeca is a village with a lot and varied things to offer, and today is the owner of a treasure unique in Europe. Arbeca and its inhabitants feel proud of their ancestors, the inhabitants of the Fortress, the ones who discovered in this land the richness and goodness that made them stay here and let their testimony. During more than 20 years, the archaeologist have been working in an incredible project. But the effort, the work and their conviction, and the help of the Arbeca town council, who believed in the importance that Vilars has for the village and the region of Les Garrigues, had enabled that today we could enjoy this treasure. 3D photogrammetry model: https://skfb.ly/6Gr8K Georeference: https://goo.gl/maps/cCmULdDbwJz