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The highest area of the settlement is located in the northeast edge of the hill, where Building I, traditionally called Castillete or Fortín, is based. It stands out for its large central patio, to which two rooms open on the north side and three on the west, accessing the building from the southern one on this side and also from a smaller entrance located on the eastern wall, called a shutter or postern. Regarding the walls that make it up, between 80 and 90 cm wide, their lower section is built with masonry and ashlars pointed with lime mortar and plastered with the same material, in some visible sections exceeding 1.5 m in height preserved at present, to which the height of an upper elevation wall made of rammed orange earth must be added, as it has been possible to corroborate in the excavation of Rooms I and II. In the excavation process, no element has been identified that could be directly related to the roof, such as tiles, so we assume that it would originally have been made up of beams, branches and probably mud.

The position of the building, attached to the line of the wall, and its extension of almost 1.300 m² (37 x 35 m), gives it a specific hierarchical function, possibly a qasaba –qasbah, as the central part of a citadel– or citadel. In the publications about the site of El Castellar de la Morera, the identification of Building I with any type of fortification is avoided, since no defensive feature is discernible. It would be a more accurate interpretation to consider it a great “domestic unit” that, due to its location, size and monumental essence of its components, would have a specific hierarchical function within the vast walled settlement, making it impossible to discern, for the time being, whether its nature is private and singular or public and collective. Its obvious parallelism, in terms of shape, parts and extension, with the qasbah of the Moroccan Almohad settlement –1st ½ XII century– of the ribāṭ Harga in Ῑgῑlῑz, although diachronic, seems to open new lines of research on the idea of the magnitude of “the domestic” element in hierarchical residences in rural areas.

The excavation of Room I, with an internal surface of about 36.50 m² –11.40 m long and 3.20 m wide– shows the main access to the building, with two wide openings of around 2.30 m that allow transit from the outdoors to the large interior patio. In this space, a bench attached to the inner face of the wall stands out on the left as we enter, a small quadrangular structure measuring 0.67 x 0.56 x 0.29 m, whose usable surface has a very compact lime and earth finishing, identical to the one used to create the pavement located at its feet which runs throughout this central space and seems to develop towards the interior patio. The existence of this structure, so close to the main entrance, enlightens the possibility of the use of this Room I as a “guard’s house”, who would have this bench available as a seat inside. Regarding the northern third of Room I, initially it would not have any type of division with respect to the central one and it only seems to have a continuous bench attached to the eastern wall, not very high and created taking advantage of an elongated and regular outcrop of rock, which could have had a varied range of uses. Before the ultimate abandonment of the building in the first half of the 11th century, possibly linked to the formation of madinat Ilš, the room was remodeled several times, reducing its usable space and the width of its openings with the construction of several masonries wall facing pointed with mud mortar, probably due to the loss of importance of the building and/or a change of use.

For further information: http://rua.ua.es/dspace/handle/10045/72190