4. THE FIRST EXCAVATIONS: THE 1944 SEASON

The research is carried out under the umbrella of the “Bastida Project”, which is also dedicated to the excavation, study and professional and public dissemination of our knowledge of two other important archaeological sites of the Argaric Bronze Age: La Bastida and Tira del Lienzo (Totana). While La Bastida had intermittent fieldwork from 1869 to 1950, previous work at La Almoloya was limited to a single fieldwork season in 1944. Unfortunately, as the settlements became widely known, looting and “treasure hunting” left both places splattered with holes.

THE FIRST EXCAVATIONS: THE 1944 SEASON

Before we started fieldwork in 2013, knowledge about La Almoloya was limited to an intervention by Emeterio Cuadrado Díaz (engineer) and Juan de la Cierva López (owner of the farm). They excavated for only four days in 1944, between the 5th and 7th of June and on the 11th of August, and discovered eight tombs and the remains of a house. Fortunately, these results were published in two twin articles5. However, these papers also had the misfortune of making the site well-known, paving the way for the significant plundering recorded, especially since the late 1960s. In the visit made in 1976 by one of the members of the current investigation team, the traces of clandestine interventions were already very obvious, although the worst was yet to come in the following years. Heritage losses6 are difficult to assess and often irreversible. Despite this, a professor from the University of Murcia prepared a third publication, in which she rescued some of the objects from the hands of private collectors and made them available for new research7 .

Archaeological materials recovered for study by María Manuela Ayala. Images of the beginning of the 1944 excavation8 .

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