In 2020, archaeologists could not go to the ground and continue the excavation started in 2018, but the Covid-19 pandemic did not prevent the research project «Muslims and Christians in Medieval Cacela: changing territory and identities» know advances in the laboratory.
The unexpected arrival of Covid-19 forced the team of researchers from the University of Algarve (UAlg) and the Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve (DRCAlg) to rethink the excavations that were planned for last summer and to focus on the analysis work of the material collected in the first two years of field work.
Prevented from digging, researchers and students focused all their intentions on laboratory actions and the results have already started to emerge.
“There are some interesting results from the fauna point of view. We have already started to have some quantitative data and it matches what we were already waiting for», he revealed to Sul Informação Maria João Valente, archaeologist and professor at UAlg, who coordinates the project together with archaeologist Cristina Teté Garcia, from DRCAlg.
In the meantime, the research that has been carried out has shed light on the area of the old well, «where are we digging and that we thought it had been totally abandoned and then occupied by the Christians, to make the necropolis on top».
In other words, the theory that existed was that “the Islamic neighborhood was abandoned close to the time of the Reconquest and that it would have been occupied later by Christians, already with another function”, as a cemetery.
“But the situation seems to be more complex than we expected, because the neighborhood itself is being reoccupied. In other words, it will have been abandoned, at first, and then it will have been reoccupied. What we still do not know is whether it was still reoccupied by Muslims or by some Christian group that settled there after the castle was conquered. This is one of the things we have to see in the coming years», explained Maria João Valente.
This information comes thanks to the work that has been carried out and that goes far beyond the weeks in which archaeologists and students – Portuguese and Canadians – meticulously scrutinize the ground, under the look of the old fortress of Cacela-Velha.
“This year, the activities of the research project “Muslims and Christians in Medieval Cacela: changing territory and identities” were changed. The summer archaeological excavation was cancelled, the teams reorganized and this time was used for different tasks. Thus, in the tranquility of the facilities of the University of Algarve Library, anthropology researchers analyzed skeletons from the Christian necropolis of Cacela», described the Regional Directorate of Culture, in a publication on the social network Facebook.
"In the Archeology Laboratory of the same university, the archaeological design of metal pieces found in archaeological excavations was tested with the collaboration of a student from the Faculty of Fine Arts (Lisbon)," added the same entity.
Meanwhile, the team from the municipality of Vila Real de Santo António «began to shape the Archaeological Information System of Cacela-Velha, creating the database for the registration of ceramics, whose collection reaches close to 15.000 fragments».
«In this dynamic, the Anthropology database was also tested, with the systematization of all the bio-archaeological information of the necropolis of Cacela-Velha, as part of a final work of a research seminar of the Cultural Heritage and Archeology course at the University do Algarve”, illustrated the Regional Directorate of Culture.
“If things don't work out in terms of field work, we will continue to invest seriously in the laboratory, because this work has to be done. We have material for at least two good years of material work alone», said Maria João Valente.
«At the level of master's work, they are all being developed. As for the Doctorate, which was something that we would have liked to have already started, it is always dependent on a scholarship. We are waiting for that», he told the Sul Informação.
Collaborations with the Hercules Laboratory at the University of Évora are also maintained “and there were many materials that were sent to the laboratory to be analyzed from a biochemical point of view. Everything at the laboratory level is going well».
Although it was not possible to continue the excavation on the ground, as planned, it was possible to carry out “a 3D topographical and photographic survey of the old well. We would have liked to have done it sooner, but we were only able to do it in October, when it rained and it is always difficult to do this kind of work in the rain. But it was done», guaranteed the UAlg archaeologist.
DRCAlg, in turn, highlighted that this work, as well as the cleaning of the archaeological site, were carried out in conjunction with the municipality of Vila Real de Santo António and the Guarda Nacional Republicana, project partners.
«It was a very useful time of organization, of analyzing the unpublished archaeological remains of Cacela-Velha and of giving continuity to the various academic and scientific research works in progress. It is expected, in 2021, to return to the field again to continue the archaeological work and safeguarding the Cultural Heritage», concludes that entity.
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