A study of the “Excalibur” sword found in Valencia has been revealed to have Islamic origins sometime during the 10th century AD.

Valencia is one of the oldest cities in Spain, founded under the name of Valentia Edetanorum by the Romans in 138 BC.

The city was conquered by the Moors in the 8th century AD, and was destroyed by Abd al-Rahman I of the Umayyad dynasty. Under Caliphate rule, the wider city area became known as Madînat al-Turâb (meaning “city of earth” or “sand”).

The sword was discovered back in 1994 in a house on Valencia’s Historiador Chabàs Street, where it was found standing upright in a grave beneath an Islamic era house.

Dubbed “Excalibur” due to the circumstances of its discovery, the sword is made from iron and has a hilt decorated with bronze plates. In mythology, Excalibur was the legendary sword of King Arthur and appears in various medieval poems describing Arthur pulling the sword from a stone.

However, the “Excalibur” from Valencia was found in a sedimentary strata from the 10th century AD and was likely the weapon of a cavalryman from the Andalusian Caliphate Era.

According to the archaeologists, the sword measures 46 centimetres in length and has a slightly curved blade towards the tip. Swords from this period are rarely found well-preserved due to the levels of oxygen and water in the soil that causes oxidation of the iron.

“It is the first Islamic sword that appears in the city of Valencia, with only one similar example being found during the excavations of Medina Azahara, the caliphal city of Abd al-Rahman III, in Córdoba,” said the Valencia City Council.

Header Image Credit : The Archaeology Service (SIAM) of the Valencia City Council

Sources : Valencia City Council

This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily

A study of a Roman shipwreck off the coast of Mallorca has identified a new type of amphora.

The shipwreck, known as the shipwreck of Ses Fontanelles, was discovered 65 metres from the coast of a tourist beach near Mallorca’s capital of Palma.

According to a paper published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, the ship dates from the 4th century and likely departed from Cartagena in southeastern Spain while navigating the trade routes of the western Mediterranean.

Archaeologists found in the hold a cargo packaged in amphorae, some of which have painted inscriptions (tituli picti) on the exterior. The inscriptions provide information such as the origin, destination, type of product, and the owner of the goods – identified as “Alunnius et Ausonius.”

The amphorae have been classified into four main group types. The most abundant is the Almagro 51c type amphorae, for which the tituli picti indicate a contents of fish sauce which derives almost exclusively from a single species: the European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus)

The other groups consist of the flat-bottomed amphorae, the Keay XIX type, and a new type of amphora named Ses Fontanelles I, which is larger and heavier than most other amphorae types and was used for carrying plant oil.

According to the study authors: “All the analytical data suggest that Alunnius et Ausonius prepared a trade enterprise fleeting, a merchant ship with a cargo composed mainly of fish sauce (Liquaminis flos), in Almagro 51c amphora, oil transported in Ses Fontanelles I amphorae (probably an imitation of Dressel 23 type), and grape derivates or fruits preserved in those substances in flat-bottomed amphorae.”

Header Image Credit : Arqueomallornauta – Consell de Mallorca

Sources : Cau-Ontiveros, M.Á., Bernal-Casasola, D., Pecci, A. et al. Multianalytical approach to the exceptional Late Roman shipwreck of Ses Fontanelles (Mallorca, Balearic Islands, Spain). Archaeol Anthropol Sci 16, 58 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-024-01952-3

This content was originally published on www.heritagedaily.com – © 2023 – HeritageDaily