The fifth archaeological field season in the
Modular project at the Son Catlar settlement has now come to an end. Between 4 and 30 July the team of archaeologists led by Fernando Prados, M. José León, Helena Jiménez and Joan de Nicolás focused their efforts on the location where the bent entrance was discovered in 2017. Following excavation of both the outer part and the entrance, the team made plans to cover an extended area within.
During the 2021 excavation a deposit of materials from the Roman Republic period was found, which they linked to a sealed access ritual which occurred after the settlement was conquered. The materials serve to date this event to the late 2nd century BC or the early decades of the 1st century BC.
New discoveries
This year's field season extended the excavation sector and located significant
structures annexed to the bent entrance system, erected at the same time as the gate, in other words in the late 3rd century BC during the Second Punic War. They documented a rectangular space here, which could potentially have had a military function. The space may have been a barracks forming part of the defensive system of the bent entrance. The structure was reused in the Roman era as a domestic area. An oven has been documented within. The bent entrance was furthermore found to be the starting point of two perfectly oriented roadways, one leading eastwards and the other southwards. The team was able only partially to excavate the eastern roadway. A
wedge-shaped wall structure has been documented here, serving as a buttress supported on the perimeter wall of the barracks.
Supported on this wall, a small oven or mill has been documented, erected on an adobe base with an elevation made from fragments of amphora, which remains practically complete. Although it did not prove possible to finish excavating this zone, all the evidence is that it was likewise converted into one or more domestic areas in the Roman High Imperial period.
In this regard, we see it as particularly significant that, pending the detailed study of the findings which will take place over the coming months,
no materials that could be dated beyond the 1st century of the period have been documented.