Another finding in the archaeological survey of a photovoltaic solar plant

Thanks to companies like Circle Energy who are committed to doing things properly, we are fortunate to rescue and value findings like this. Not everything is the role behind our activity, nor is it particular interests.

The Finding.

During some of the archaeological prospecting work that we have had the opportunity to carry out during this past year 2018, we have been able to identify different elements of patrimonial interest of different kinds. Archaeological elements such as ethnological or historical artistic, which had not been catalogued to date...

In the course of one of these works, motivated by the installation of a photovoltaic solar plant in the municipality of Pepino (Toledo), we found a monument made of cement, probably molded, of rectangular shape, approximately 1.70 cm high, 0.80 cm wide and 0.30 cm thick, in which a series of typical Talavera ceramic tiles are embedded in white with an inscription and a drawing in cobalt blue.

The entire landmark is molded with geometric motifs distributed like pillars on the flanks of the element and in a metope that crowns it.

The inscriptions.

The inscription, made on 12 tiles and in two lines one on the other, reads “SECTOR II” and below it “ACEQUIA B” and the signature in the lower right corner of the “Ruiz de Luna TALAVERA” manufacturing workshop.

This firm refers to a famous ceramic workshop founded by Juan Ruiz de Luna (1863-1945) and later continued by two of his sons, and who went on to create the Ruiz de Luna Ceramics Museum, located in Talavera de la Reina as a repository and exhibition of his private collection until, after his death, it was ceded to the City Council of that town.

Further down and separated by a transverse molding, we find another tile, with a drawing of the coat of arms of the Engineers of Roads, Canals and Ports, which, according to the statutes of its body, “consists of a bridge over a channel, with an anchor crossed with a chain, and all surrounded by two branches, one of palm and the other of oak, tied at the bottom and open at the top”.

The historical framework.

Chronologically, we must frame this element at the time of construction of the series of canals and ditches that are distributed throughout the area and that must correspond to the time of construction of the Dam and the Lower Canal of the Alberche, between 1935 and 1950, and more specifically to its completion date around 1949.

With regard to these works (Pérez Conde, J. 2013), their purpose was to irrigate an area of just over 10,000 hectares of rainfed land in the Talavera de la Reina and Calera area to enable the exploitation of new crops, and the obtaining of a much more intensive agricultural productivity that would bring wealth to the Talavera region. When hydrographic confederations were created in 1926 (during the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera) in order to achieve greater and more regulated use of river basins, it was already decided to build a dam on the Alberche River from which a channel would start to irrigate the Vega Talavera and Calera sector.

But it was not until the advent of the Second Republic that a field study was carried out (August 1932). On April 7, 1934, the project for the first section of the channel (half of its length, which would be 31 kilometers) was approved by order of the Ministry of Public Works, although the beginning of the civil war meant that works on the channel were stopped.

After the war ended with the defeat of the Republic, Franco summarized the plan and decided to continue the construction of the canal and its dam on the Alberche River. It was the 3rd Group of the Militarized Penitentiary Colonies Service and the Presa del Alberche Criminal Detachment, formed by republican prisoners of war, who were responsible for carrying out such works that lasted a whole decade, from 1940 to 1950, the date on which the work was delivered (Franco inaugurated the dam and the channel on October 14, 1950, through a visit that commemorated a bronze plaque now removed).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pérez Conde, J. (2013): “The construction of the dam and the lower channel of the Alberche 1939-1950: The use of republican prisoners as forced labor in its construction.” Space, Time and Form, Series V, Contemporary History, t. 25, 2013 pp. 341-372