City wall secrets revealed
RESTORATION work on the Punic wall in Cartagena has unearthed two ancient discoveries, a wooden and bronze shield and a compass from the taking of the city then known as Qart Hadast by the Roman general Scipio.
The archaeological intervention on the wall has involved using orthophotography to create a 3D model.
During the work they discovered earthen floor and structures from the Roman and Punic periods, some of which show they were prepared from a base of reeds or canes.
Financed by city hall for €41,485, the aim was to better showcase its value, apply conservation treatments and use new technologies to document the wall, which was built in the late third century BC, probably coinciding with the founding of the city by Asdrúbal.
The preserved section is where the city gates used to be, and was built as two parallel walls made of sandstone or tabaire from Canteras to the south of the city. Inside it, compartments called casemates were formed with perpendicular walls using a system known as opus africanum, which involves alternating blocks of masonry with natural stones.
The sandstone is very permeable and porous, highly sensitive to environmental factors like fluctuations in humidity and temperature which progressively turn it to sand, reducing its volume.
This made it necessary to apply cleaning and consolidation techniques to stabilise the remains, which principally involved removing mortar from previous interventions that was no longer serving any purpose, and soft brushing and vacuum cleaning the stones.
Also, water and quicklime was applied to consolidate the stone and the mortar was replaced with another made of lime and aggregate.
The work was supervised by the regional government and a city hall team led by the director of the municipal archaeology museum.
Mayoress Ana Belén Castejón visited last week and said: “The city and its three millennia of history never cease to surprise us."
She added that the experts will now have to catalogue these new objects and certify their origin.