Αrchaelogy

The aim of this project is the archaeological knowledge of the architectural ensembles of religious character (church and funeral) that marked the landscape of cities and their territoria in the Iberian Peninsula during the Late Antiquity and later the survival of the cultural heritage of the classical world during the Umayyad period of al-Andalus.
The new archaeological data relating to urbanism and architecture of prestige, civil and sacred, of the Late Antiquity and post 711 period are a key to overcoming the impact of the traditional historiographical approach advocated by the existence of a discontinuity and rupture of cultural landscapes between the two periods, distorting the physical interpretation and understanding of the urban phenomenon in the first Andalusian period and relegated to a secondary level the common Roman heritage in the Mediterranean which survived in the Islamic period in the West.
A significant monuments of late antique ecclesiastical character is located at the site of Paço dos Bispos (“Palace of Bishops”) of Idanha-a-Velha (old Igaeditanorum ciuitas) (Fig. 1). The 7th century episcopium of Egitania has been located in the southwest intramural and it is comprises by several phases corresponding to different buildings. There are two baptisteries and several buildings that were excavated between 1954 and the end years of the 20th century.
We have addressed a multidisciplinary study of the urban landscape of ancient Egitania. One of our methodological priorities has been the application of the provisions of the Archaeology of Architecture and Remote Sensing. As a result of this, in 2012 it has been detected with a laser scanner and GPS some architectural elements, getting a new mapping and the lifting of the elevations of the existing walls. We also perform a flight with a drone, which has generated two reservoir orthophotos and 3D modeling. In the 2014 excavation campaign two naves were opened in the south and north of a building which we interpret as a possible chapel or oratory memory of the Episcopal group. It is a rectangular construction longitudinally divided into three narrow naves (about 2 m wide and 16 m long), two rows of supports which are preserved five sections of arches east-west.
The archaeological excavation confirmed that the pillars of stones with archery and footings belong to a building of Late Antiquity and Early Medieval chronology (7-8th centuries). On the one hand, they are affected by a silo of Andalusian chronology (survey 1), and secondly, support and/or cover levels of Late Roman Empire (survey 2).
In the survey 1 has proceeded to drain clogging of a silo, then used as landfill powerful, slow and progressive training, and a wide Medieval-Islamic chronology by the presence of atypical common, varnished and glazes ceramics. Although it has noted here or in other areas intramural no structure associated with a domestic occupation of Andalusian period.
The ceramic assemblage –with about 300 fragments– is both diverse and homogeneous, showing a pattern of local/regional productions of ceramics between about the 9th and 11th centuries. They can generally be ascribed to everyday containers for kitchen and table, storage, lighting and transportation.
The Andalusian landfill also had a significant collection of 1126 remains mammalian fauna which has been practiced its mandatory archaeozoological analysis. There is a great representation of domestic species (35%) as Bos taurus, Equus caballus, Ovis aries/Capra hircus, and among wild animals have been documented lagomorphs (2.7%), Cervus elaphus (12%) and Sus Scrofa. Brands have been observed associated with the dismantling pits of some bones, after being used for different functions (production of wool, milk, transport, etc.) were used for food and meat purposes, thus having a complete amortization.
Some samples from the filling sediment of the northern profile (UU.EE. 11 and 14) were also taken. Pollen analysis reflects a high level of organic matter, which led to proliferate fungi, indicating that was slowly filling with very local sediment.
Another area that would be part of the Egitanian episcopium, perhaps a palatium of Bishops, is masked in the factory of the See of Idanha-a-Velha, that, in its present form, is a reconstruction of the late Middle Ages of a church of the 12th century. The aspect that has attracted the most attention and controversy by specialists is its distribution in three naves with a northeast-southwest direction of the main shaft, which is not canonically set or a Christian or an Islamic temple.
Claudio Torres did not hesitate to give this unique building a religious use during the Visigoth and Andalusian periods, first as a church, later as a mosque. Some of the arguments are based on a southwest facing qibla hypothetical common orientation in al-Andalus, much like a series of close parallels, and the architectural plan, comparable to that drawn by the Great Mosque of Damascus.
Manuel Luis Real, relying on the temporary conquest of the place by Alfonso III and the supposed restoration of the diocese of Egitania builds its proposal for a renovated late 9th or early 10th century.
Nevertheless, is no doubt that both positions have been built as historiographical proposals without archaeological references. In fact, others scholars deny the liturgical use of this construction and prefer consider a civil order, perhaps a palace, objecting to its use as a mosque. Little more can bring about their archaeological interpretation and functionality, since there is no material or structural or epigraphic evidence to raise its use as a mosque. Some of the items inside, including the presence of a well, provide certain optimum qualities to be engaged inside the Koranic worship. But it must be noted that no structural change that they confirm is observed, except for the late medieval adaptations, the building is clearly from the seventh century.
After 711 the previous episcopal structure would break, creating a new model of organization and structuring of the territory, where Idania, Exitania or Antaniya capital Kura counted at least four districts or iqlim, take his own place on the border lower in the southern part of Garb al-Andalus (West Iberian Peninsula). Perhaps it was controlled by Abd al-Aziz, son of Musa, who managed the western territory of the peninsula. The long episode of riots staged by Ibn Marwan was the cause of the destruction of Idahna, rather than Marwan restore itself to transform the city into their residence.
The ceramic registration documented in the excavation of the silo, with materials attached to the 11th century, suggests that it may result in a farmhouse of suburban type, residual inhabited by human groups dedicated to agriculture and livestock, and located within the boundaries of Santarém and Mérida.

Gunflints were a commodity indispensable for the modern military, playing a key role in the arsenals of all armies. The wars in the 17th-19th centuries increased the demand for weapons, and, consequently, for significant supplies of gunflints. To have their own source of the product was a strategic objective of all governments. Several flint workshops were located in the neighbourhoods of Cracow where flint was abundant. One of the largest and best preserved was the workshops in Zelków, a village that in the 19th century laid just on the border of Russia and Austria-Hungary. This paper discusses some issues of the mass production of gunflints in the modern era based on a case study of flint factories and the history of the Zelków workshop.