Full assistance at the ICAC’s conference room last Friday, May 31, on the occasion of the IV Interdisciplinary Seminar on Epigraphy and Archaeometry, which also hosted a tribute to Rosa M. Mercado, a young archaeologist trained in the Master’s Degree in Classical Archeology (joined URV-UAB- ICAC).
More than fifty people attended throughout the day to the fifteen presentations scheduled.
During the more academic part of the event, there were more than ten communications on topics related to numismatics, metals and the last issues in different archaeological sites and deposits where these sort of pieces can be found.
Ignacio Montero, CSIC researcher and expert in archaeometallurgy, presented the paper Circulación de la plata entre la Península Ibérica y el Mediterráneo Oriental with which he explored the latest advances in the identification of the origin of the silver by combining different analytical techniques. He especially highlighted the possible use of peninsular mineral (both silver and lead, necessary for the extraction) in the other end of the Mediterranean.
Marta Campo, former director of the Numismatic Catalan Office of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia, and Pere Castanyer, Marta Santos and Joaquim Tremoleda, from the del Archaeological Museum of Catalonia – Empúries, presented a set of denarius founded in the Insula 30 of the Roman city of Ampurias in the 2016 campaign of archaeological excavation works. This little treasure, as the experts call it, represents an exceptional finding not only because it was found in an archaeological context but also because of its composition ‒formed only by Roman denarius‒ in a chronological moment in which the Greek-tradition Emporian coinage and the Iberian currency also circulated in this settlement.
Other presentations talked about the bronze deposit of Colomina de Bor, in Bellver de Cerdanya (Josep Gallart, Territorial Services of the Catalan Government in Lleida), the metallic objects in the necrópolis of Almenar (Ares Vidal, Iltirta), or the importance of the metal in the Iberian necropolis (Maria Carme Belarte, ICREA-ICAC), among others.
Afternoon communications gave voice to young researchers, with the participation of PhD researchers from the ICAC and from other institutions. Thus, the latest developments in archaeological interventions in the fortress of Vilars ‒in Arbeca (Alba Castellano and Jordi Martínez, GIP), in the site of Valencia “la Vella” ‒in Riba-roja de Túria (Iván Fernández, Francesc Rodríguez and Karen Fortuny, ICAC), or in the Castellet de Banyoles (Òscar Caldés, UB).
In the part most related to the tribute to Rosa M. Mercado, the researchers M. Carme Belarte and Núria Rafel dedicated two heartfelt interventions to her; and her young colleagues, especially Laura Galán and Karen Fortuny, to whom we must thank the initiative of the event, remembered her person and her relationship with archaeology.
