A team of researchers from the University Institute for Research in Archaeology and Historical Heritage (INAPH) at the University of Alicante will publicly present on May 16 the results of their exhaustive investigation into l’Assut de l’Argamassa, a monumental dam built over the course of the Vinalopó River that until now was thought to be of Islamic origin.
The team, led by Professor of Ancient History Jaime Molina Vidal, together with Associate Professor Daniel Mateo Corredor from the same department, and Belén Carrillo Maciá, representative of the Elche City Council, has confirmed that the dam is of Roman origin.
L’Assut de l’Argamassa is located near the ancient Latin colony of Ilici (Elche), and it has notable dimensions, with a length exceeding 130 meters and a height reaching 4 meters, giving an idea of the scale of the hydraulic engineering project carried out in that era.
According to the researchers, the attribution to the Islamic period lacked material or documentary evidence to conclusively support it, which led the team to propose new hypotheses based on the morphological analysis of the structure and, above all, on the application of scientific dating methods such as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL).
The results obtained have allowed them to precisely date the construction of the dam between the end of the 1st century BCE and the beginning of the 1st century CE. This period coincides with a key moment in local history: the founding process of the Roman colony of Ilici and the productive organization of the ager ilicitano, the agricultural area that supplied the city and which is now confirmed to have already had a complex hydraulic network from the earliest imperial times.
Its function as a flow-regulating structure is unquestionable, says Molina, who also does not rule out that the dam may have served a complementary role in the irrigation system of the lands located on the right bank of what was then called the Alebus River, the name the Romans gave to the Vinalopó.
Thus, Roman colonization was not limited to an urban layout and an institutional apparatus, but also involved a profound design of the agricultural landscape and the rational use of water, a fundamental element in a region characterized by structural aridity.
Although additionally it may have served to establish irrigation systems on the right bank of the Alebus River (Vinalopó). The OSL datings leave no doubt about the construction of the structure between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE, so l’Assut de l’Argamassa was very likely linked to the creation of the colony of Ilici and the productive organization of the ager ilicitano in Roman times, the researchers conclude.
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