The Sikarra Award recognizes Josep Guitart for a lifetime dedicated to the Roman site of Iesso.

The Sikarra Award, organized by the Fundació Jordi Cases i Llebot and the association Espitllera Fòrum d’Estudis Segarrencs (EFES), was presented on Saturday, March 16th, in Guissona, to the director of the excavation of the Roman city of Iesso, Josep Guitart i Duran.

Guitart and his team have placed the Roman park of Guissona among the most important sites to understand the process of Romanization in Catalonia. He has led the project from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and under the coordination of the Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica (ICAC-CERCA), which has managed the project since 2004 with the concatenation of several four-year projects co-funded by the Department of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya. The current project, Transformacions urbanístiques, dinàmiques constructives i vida urbana a la ciutat romana de Iesso (Guissona, Segarra) (CLT009/22/00039), is directed by Núria Romaní (UAB) and Josep Guitart, who was the first director of the ICAC (in 2003) and is currently an associated researcher at the Institute.

As reported by the Guissona City Council, during the award ceremony, Josep Guitart explained that he arrived in Guissona in 1974, after the archaeologist Emili Junyent told him that some young people, Francesc Santacreu, Santi Mercadé, Ramon Santaeulària, and Ramon Ribera, were excavating and had made the discovery of a Roman sewer in the Fassina. Guitart explained, “since then, the archaeological park of Iesso, as if it had come to life, has accompanied me until today.”

Today, the Roman city of Iesso, along with the work of the Museu de Guissona, is a comprehensive project to understand Romanization in the inland regions of Catalonia.