VisitElche

In the place where we are, located at the confluence of the street Diagonal del Palau and Fatxo street, you can see part of one of the towers of the first fortification of the Islamic period of the city of Elche and the layout of a section of the wall canvas marked on the roadway.

As a result of the works of pedestrianization of the street were partially documented various structures that can be interpreted as a section of the wall of the Islamic period.

Thanks to these actions, vestiges of a wall that crosses the street perpendicularly from the remains of a possible tower, that was originally interpreted as a corner. Due to the construction techniques of the wall and the tower, similar to those documented in the area of Transpalacio, as well as some of the materials recovered, it seems that the structures belong to the first fortification of the Islamic madina, which can be placed in the Caliphate-Taifal period (X-XI centuries).

Subsequently, this first wall was reinforced and extended in the Almoravid period (11th century) by two irregular masonry walls with lime mortar, located on the front and rear faces of the whole wall, which contained a filling of layers of rammed earth and lime grout, reaching a total width of about 6 meters, corresponding to the lower part of the wall.

At this point of the historic city no later constructions from the medieval period have been recovered; however, with the disuse of the walls as a defensive system it seems that they were reused as a space for the installation of hydraulic structures, as seems to be demonstrated by the discovery of two cisterns, one of which has a graffiti with the date ‘1746’.

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