Lucentum --Roman City

During our recent visit to Spain, we had the opportunity to revisit the Roman ruins of the ancient city of "Lucentum". These ruins are just outside the modern city of Alicante, Spain. The ruined city has been fully excavated and all of the artifacts found at the site now reside in the Roman Wing of the Alicante Archaelogical Mueseum. On our first visit, a year ago, we were only able to traverse about half of the city, and this year we finished walking all the open streets. We found that some reconstruction of the city has begun in the replacement of some pillars in the forum, and in the reconstructions of the city baths. One of the main entrances to the city through the outer wall has been restored with clear plastic on the walkway to show the special carvings of the stone work to recieve and lock the wooden drawbridge in place. There is also
a well-defined drainage system throughout the city to get rid of waste water and excessive rainwater. The city of "Lucentum" was the outgrowth of a Phoenician trading colony and was situated above a lagoon which reached into the interior between two highland plateaus. Over the years the lagoon has filled itself in from silt carried down by mountain streams and in the early 1900's the Spanish completed filling in the lagoon area, and put a narrow concrete drainage ditch down the center, draining waters into the sea.

The basic layout of the city currently is identified by the basic structure of the building foundations and city walls, and a variety of pictured signs placed around the city to identify points of special interest with diagrams and drawings showing the area as it must have looked in antiquity. The main streets of the city have been paved to make visitor walking easier, and special areas such as the main entrance gate, main drainage channel and the hypocaust have special gratings installed to enable visitors to walk out just above the structure to make a closer inspection of these areas. Certain houses and structures have been selected to show the probable original living facilities, baths, water storage, and pedestrian movement throughout the city.

In the museum are many different artifacts which were found in the city and these include a very large variety of flasks, and clay pots, as well as tools, and religious icons of various kinds, indicating that the populace worshipped different gods as would be natural for a trading colonial city. The main export of the city was olive oil and fish as well as "garum." There are the remains of olive press weights in several places throughout the ruins. In the future, I shall be pleased to redraw the city map that we were given in a larger format which identifies many of the ancient structures, as well as provide for your viewing some photographs of the city taken during our walkabout. These further comments will be put into the "Roman Times Quarterly" for your enjoyment.

Respectfully submitted;

Marcus Audens