Listed 2 sub titles with search on: Information about the place for wider area of: "ALICANTE Town VALENCIAN COMMUNITY" .
ALICANTE (Town) VALENCIAN COMMUNITY
Lucentum (Alicante) Alicante, Spain.
A Contestan city on the E coast (Plin., HN 3.20, Mela 2.6.93, Ptol. 2.14.14).
It was once thought that the name derived from the phrase Akra Leuke given in
the Classical texts, but that town is more probably Tossal de Manises or Benacantil.
Towards the end of the 19th c. the urbanization of the suburb of Benalua, E of
Alicante, uncovered the remains of a Roman city and a fragment of a stone tablet
(since disappeared) with the inscription . . .ONINUS L . . ./ . . .S.AVGG.GER.SAR.
. ./MVNICIPI LVCENTINI. . . , apparently part of a dedication of the municipium
of Lucentum to Antoninus Pius and to Commodus (A.D. 176-180), thus locating it
in the Els Antigons area.
At its height, the city occupied an area of 1 km by 200-400 m along
the coast; it was smaller after the crisis in the 3d c., and the W part was used
as a necropolis during the Late Empire. Excavation has uncovered a group of buildings
identified as a trading post for salt fish, fine wall tiles from Arezzo, S Gaul,
and Spain, amphorae, chandeliers, sculptural remains, and Republican and Imperial
coins, most of which have been lost. Lucentum was apparently founded in the 1st
c. B.C., suffered upheavals in the 3d c. A.D., survived precariously until it
disappeared in the 8th c. with the Arab invasion when the town was moved to its
present location at the foot of Benacantil.
D. Fletcher, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
ELCHE (Town) VALENCIAN COMMUNITY
Illici Elche) Alicante, Spain.
A settlement 2 km from Elche on the Dolores road, on the estate of La Alcudia.
It is mentioned in ancient sources (Plin. 3.20; Mela 2.93; Diod. 25.10; Ptol.
2.61). The settlement occupied some 10 ha on a rise ca. 4 m higher than the surrounding
plain. In the Bronze Age it bore a tiny village (stratum G), above which were
a series of towns: Iberian (F, E), Republican Roman (D), destroyed about the middle
of the 1st c. B.C.; Imperial Roman (C), razed by the Frankish invasions and subsequent
revolts; Late Roman (B), much reduced in size and destroyed by barbarian peoples;
and finally the Visigothic-Byzantine stratum (A), after which the hillside was
abandoned and its inhabitants settled the site of modern Elche.
In 43-42 B.C. Illici was raised to the status of colonia immunis under
the name of Colonia Iulia Illici Augusta and issued Roman coinage with more than
20 variant types between 43 B.C. and A.D. 31. The town walls, surveyed in 1565,
had a perimeter of 1400 m (now largely destroyed). Since 1752 excavation has uncovered
such architectural remains as baths and an amphitheater. Stratum C (mid 1st c.
B.C. to mid 3d c. A.D.) yielded houses larger than those in stratum D, with impluvium,
bath and drain, admirable statuary, coins from the Empire. Stratum B (3d-4th c.)
produced remains of a building identified as a synagogue, built in the 4th-5th
c., enlarged in the 7th c., and containing a mosaic with a Greek legend indicating
where the people, the magistrates, and the elders assembled for prayer.
Finds from the site include sculpture--most notably the so-called
Lady of Elche (4th-3d c. B.C.) now in the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid--coins,
inscriptions, mosaics, ceramics. There is a museum on the site.
D. Fletcher, ed.
This text is from: The Princeton encyclopedia of classical sites,
Princeton University Press 1976. Cited Jan 2006 from
Perseus Project URL below, which contains bibliography & interesting hyperlinks.
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