La Bastida and El Campico de Lébor

Re-excavating La Bastida and El Campico de Lébor in the MAN

This project presents the document collection kept by the National Archaeological Museum related with the Argaric site at La Bastida in Totana, Murcia, and the Chalcolithic side at Campico de Lébor, in the same municipality.

Most of the items belong to the Martínez Santa-Olalla collection, particularly interesting being the negatives the images of which show the excavations carried out by the Seminar on the Primitive History of Man of the University of Madrid, in the years 1944, 1945, 1948 and 1950.Salto de línea

Identification of the images is made it possible to sort the negatives by campaign. This enables the progress of the excavations in the different sectors and tombs in La Bastida and in the so-called “hoyos (holes)” (cabin and silo floors) in Campico de Lébor to be seen. Thus, not only has the importance been shown of an unpublished document collection which also illustrates the importance photography acquired as a document technique for archaeology at that time, but it has also directly helped research into La Bastida, currently being carried out by a team of the Department of Prehistory of the Autonomous University of Barcelona led by Vicente Lull, Rafael Micó, Cristina Rihuete Herrada and Roberto Risch. The same team has directly helped in identification of the items in the collection presented here.

To complete the information on the La Bastida site, items from the Siret collection corresponding to the excavation performed in 1886 by Louis Siret and Pedro Flores have been included.