The southern doorway of Jaca Cathedral is much less well known than the western entrance to the church, with its famous chrism and inscriptions. However, it was one of the first historiated doorways in the Romanesque style in the Iberian Peninsula. The alterations suffered over the centuries and the loss of original elements have undoubtedly contributed to this historiographical neglect.
A hypothesis for the reconstruction of the ensemble, based on the study of components still in situ and other decontextualised elements, will make it possible to highlight its singularities and propose new keys for reading its images. In this sense, the cathedral doorway is revealed as an important milestone in the creation of visual discourses and the configuration of entrance typologies at the end of the 11th century.

I Seminar on the ancient and medieval cult image. Iconotropy is a word of Greek origin that literally means “movement/change of the image”. According to William J. Hamblin (2007), iconotropy is the cultural phenomenon whereby there is an “accidental or deliberate misinterpretation by one culture of the images or myths of another, especially to bring them into accord with the first culture”. Thus, both in the classical culture of antiquity and in medieval culture, we can identify numerous testimonies of how – on a symbolic and material level – cult images were involved in processes of misinterpretation produced by another culture. The international seminar “Iconotropy: symbolic and material alterations of the ancient and medieval cult image” aims to revitalise studies on the ancient and medieval cult image based on the concept of “iconotropy” (movement/change of the image), and to show researchers and students how the subject can still be approached from a multidisciplinary and innovative perspective that allows common denominators to be reached in defining the symbolic and material changes of these images in different chronologies, epochs and mentalities.

Biscós Square is located at the northern end of the historic centre of Jaca; it has been an open space for public use since the beginning of the 16th century, when it became known as Campo del Toro (Bull’s Field). It had previously housed the Main Cemetery for four hundred years, from the end of the 11th century. This space was the subject of archaeological excavations between 2005 and 2006, on the occasion of the construction of an underground car park. The work brought to light almost 900 tombs of various types, as well as the remains of the wall that had been demolished at the beginning of the 20th century. Among the findings were around twenty burials with Pecten shells that link this area to the Pilgrim’s Way to Santiago de Compostela. The documentation of the Main Cemetery has recently been completed with archaeological excavations carried out in neighbouring plots (Plaza Biscós no. 2 and Plaza Ripa no. 4), documenting around fifty tombs, belonging to the first phase of use of the necropolis and which mainly housed infants and children.