‘El Tolmo de Minateda’ is a hill that stands at a strategic crossroads between the southern Meseta and the Mediterranean coast. It has been inhabited since the Bronze Age. In 1988, a systematic project was initiated by the University of Alicante and the Museum of Albacete. The project, directed by Lorenzo Abad, Sonia Gutiérrez, Blanca Gamo and Pablo Cánovas, involves several overlapping sites and, consequently, very different historical problems in their own diachronic sequence, which are dealt with by different teams. Among all the lines developed, it is worth highlighting the significance of ‘El Tolmo de Minateda’ for research into the Early Middle Ages. The peculiar diachrony of the settlement, practically uninhabited before the 7th century and abandoned in its urban condition after the 9th century, makes it a spectacular laboratory for analysing the early medieval phases that are usually diluted in other urban centres of Roman or Islamic origin. ‘El Tolmo’ shows an urban space from the Visigothic period in the process of Islamisation, but which does not yet reflect the triumph of Islamic society. This opens up new research perspectives that require us to reconsider the problem of the revival of certain cities in the Visigothic period in a framework of a supposed crisis of urban life; the materiality of their urban facilities and the level of their buildings; the transformation of domestic structures and the influence of Islamisation on this evolution; the definition of pre-caliphate Islamic urban planning; the survival of indigenous traditions in the culture and the material indicators of social and cultural change, etc.
Collection: Multimedia
Project: 3. Rural world and urban world in the formation of the European identity.
Chronology: -
Scope: Secondary Education
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXOiXjL27CE
Resource type: Video
Format: Multimedia
Owner: Arqueological National Museum of Spain (MAN) (Modernalia)
Abstract: 'El Tolmo de Minateda' is a hill that stands at a strategic crossroads between the southern Meseta and the Mediterranean coast. It has been inhabited since the Bronze Age. In 1988, a systematic project was initiated by the University of Alicante and the Museum of Albacete. The project, directed by Lorenzo Abad, Sonia Gutiérrez, Blanca Gamo and Pablo Cánovas, involves several overlapping sites and, consequently, very different historical problems in their own diachronic sequence, which are dealt with by different teams. Among all the lines developed, it is worth highlighting the significance of 'El Tolmo de Minateda' for research into the Early Middle Ages. The peculiar diachrony of the settlement, practically uninhabited before the 7th century and abandoned in its urban condition after the 9th century, makes it a spectacular laboratory for analysing the early medieval phases that are usually diluted in other urban centres of Roman or Islamic origin. 'El Tolmo' shows an urban space from the Visigothic period in the process of Islamisation, but which does not yet reflect the triumph of Islamic society. This opens up new research perspectives that require us to reconsider the problem of the revival of certain cities in the Visigothic period in a framework of a supposed crisis of urban life; the materiality of their urban facilities and the level of their buildings; the transformation of domestic structures and the influence of Islamisation on this evolution; the definition of pre-caliphate Islamic urban planning; the survival of indigenous traditions in the culture and the material indicators of social and cultural change, etc.
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