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Archaeological site of el Monastil

Elda, El Vinalopó Mitjà, Alicante

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 2 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

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Archaeological site of el Monastil

Nature · Elda, El Vinalopó Mitjà, Alicante

On the Monastil hill, above the río Vinalopó north of Elda, are superimposed a Contestani settlement founded in the 5th century BC on earlier Bronze Age settlements, a Roman city identified with Elo, and a Visigothic fortification with a basilica. The Iberian settlement lived from cereal and vine farming, hunting and a notable ceramic and textile production, with a potter of his own style known as the Maestro de El Monastil, and maintained trade with Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Romans. Already Romanized and linked to the Via Augusta, which connected it with Illici (Elche) and Lucentum (Alicante), it enjoyed its heyday in the 1st century AD thanks to ceramics and esparto grass. It was the valley's main centre until the population moved down to the plain in the Islamic period.

siglos IV a. C.-VII d. C.

Photo: Petronas (Wikimedia Commons) (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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