Re: Portus Gaditanus by Maatje on Sunday, 05 February 2023

Yacimiento Arqueológico de Doña Blanca Or Enclave Arqueológico Doña Blanca This large site is site excavated between 1979 and 1995 where the remains of walls, dwellings, a Punic river port (the largest in the Mediterranean[2]) and a necropolis were found, belonging to a Tarterian - Phoenician city whose occupation dates from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE. Together with Cadiz and the Cerro del Castillo (in the municipality of Chiclana), it is therefore the oldest Phoenician city found so far in the Iberian Peninsula and is therefore of exceptional importance in the panorama of Phoenician colonization in the western Mediterranean. Its exceptional degree of preservation (the only Phoenician city intact to date[5]) makes the site a key piece for future research on the settlement of the Phoenicians in the Bay of Cadiz and their relationship with the indigenous peoples of Lower Andalusia. Among other things, it contains one of the oldest cellars in the world, preserved in its entirety[6]. On this site stands the castle of Doña Blanca, so named because, according to tradition, Doña Blanca de Borbón was imprisoned here. It is a tower built in the 14th or 15th century to watch over the Bay of Cadiz and was also used as a hermitage. The oldest remains found in this enclave date to a late Copper Age phase, toward the end of the 3rd millennium B.C. This period includes a few scattered huts that adapted to the original topography of the site. Then there was a phase of neglect - during which the site remained uninhabited - that lasted until the mid-8th century B.C., when it was inhabited again. In the 8th century BC it became a proper city, with a wall, which remained uninterruptedly inhabited until the end of the 3rd century BC. During these five centuries of continuous life, the city underwent several urban conversions and the construction of two more walls. The site was again abandoned from the end of the 3rd century BC until the medieval Islamic period, when an Almohad farm was established there (12th century). Of all the areas that make up the archaeological zone of Doña Blanca, the Enclave is the only one that can be visited today. The route of the visits is a circular route, about 1600 m long, which runs along the upper part of the hill and takes us through different areas of the enclave. The tower of Doña Blanca Castle of the Sierra de San Cristóbal. It is a small building with a Greek cross that was built in the late 15th century as a pre-eminent lookout tower over the bay and the lower reaches of the Guadalete River. What we see today is the result of a reconstruction in the second half of the 19th century, as the tower lay in ruins after the Spanish War of Independence. A modern historiographical interpretation identifies this tower as the place where Doña Blanca de Borbón, wife of Pedro I, was held prisoner and died (1361), hence the name by which it is now known. Other scholars identify the building as a hermitage. The landscape Over the centuries, the surroundings of the San Cristóbal Mountains have lost their original features and, as a result, the current environment looks very different from that of the first settlers. One of the main transformations was the silting up of the bay by sedimentary contributions carried by the Guadalete River. The entire plain extending south of the site was once sea and the mouth of the river was near El Portal, almost on the foothills of the borders of the municipalities of Jerez de la Frontera and El Puerto de Santa María. The natural vegetation has adapted over the years to the changing climatic conditions, soil, relief and rainfall. But it has been man throughout history who has changed the natural vegetation of the area in the most remarkable and lasting way, mainly through tree felling, grazing and agriculture, so that today there is no trace of the primordial forests of cork oaks, carob trees and pines that densely populated the sierra in earlier times. The stratigraphic section The first excavations took place in 1979, next to the entrance to the tower, and aimed to establish the chrono-historical sequence of the site. To this end, the archaeologist proceeded by cutting deep into the subsurface up to the geological level. During the work, he records all the information about each of the deposits he finds and extracts from them all the elements that are amenable to later analysis and provide light and data for the interpretation and dating of the deposit or the period to which it belongs. In this area, in the part excavated at the greatest depth, the geological level was reached at 9 m below the surface of the mound; these 9 m are archaeological deposits that have accumulated over the five centuries of the city's existence. The hill forming the site is thus artificial and was created by this accumulation of sediments and architectural structures; in archaeology, these artificial hills are called tell. The dwellings of the 4th-3rd centuries BC. Walking along the southern slope, we come to a large excavated area with an area of about 1,000 square meters. Here we can see a group of houses and buildings from the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, which give us an insight into the urban planning of this phase. The houses are in fairly regular blocks distributed along the sides of wide, rectilinear streets. The street found, about 36 m long and 4 m wide, runs parallel to the wall. The pavement consists of tamped clay, ceramic fragments and small stones. The walls of the houses consist of a brick plinth, while at the corners and in the doorways calcarenite beams were sometimes used for more strength. The floors of the rooms are made of clay, while some areas referred to as courtyards have stone pavement. Besides the dwellings, other rooms with basins and ovens related to the manufacture of wine make up the oldest wine cellar in the West.[7] This wine was difficult to access (only for the upper classes) and was used in rituals related to deities.[8] This is the oldest wine cellar in the West. The remains of the wall are visible in the southern part of this excavation area. The structure is defined by two parallel walls interspersed with smaller perpendicular walls delineating small quadrangular spaces or casemates. Continuing the tour, you can see further south a section of this same wall, consisting of calcarenite boulders of different sizes, very well squared, perfectly joined and folded. This type of rigging is common in other Punic defenses, such as the walls of Cartagena and Carteia (San Roque), which date from the Barcidian period. The dwellings of the 8th century BC. Building remains from the 8th century BC are generally covered by a thick layer of accumulated sediments from later periods, making it necessary to excavate to a depth of 7 to 9 m to find them. However, a large area outside the walls of the archaic city was discovered in which no later structures were erected, allowing extensive excavation of a large sector of dwellings from this period. The dwellings stand on artificial terraces, taking advantage of the natural slope of the terrain. They consist of 3 or 4 quadrangular rooms, built with masonry plinth walls and adobe facades, plastered with clay and plastered with lime. The floors are made of stamped red clay and the roofs are flat or one-sided, made of wooden beams and a green roof. Most houses had a bread oven consisting of an arched clay structure about 1 m in diameter at the base. The archaic wall As early as the 8th century, the city had a strong city wall, of which only a small part is known today. It rises directly from the natural terrain and is built of irregular masonry blocks, worked with red clay; a height of 3 m remains in the excavated sections. A V-shaped moat, 20 m wide and 4 m deep, was built directly in front of the wall. This wall was in use until the 5th century BC. In the 5th century B.C., the city received a new city wall, only partially reusing the old one. Finally, in the 4th century BC, the last fortified enclosure was built. Necropolis On the other side of the Carrera de El Portal, on the slopes of the San Cristóbal mountain range, lies the necropolis. Here a tumulus was excavated with a diameter of about 20 m and a maximum height of 1.80 m. The central space was occupied by the ustrinum, where the corpse was cremated. Around the ustrinum were 63 burials of different types, ranging from different types of urns containing the ashes to simple cavities excavated in the natural rock for the same purpose.

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