El monumento de Pozo Moro

May 14, 2026 Presented and moderated by: Cristina Villar Fernández, Deputy Director of the National Archaeological Museum Speakers: Martín Almagro-Gorbea, Director of the Pozo Moro Excavations and Member of the Royal Academy of History. Pozo Moro, the first architectural monument in Hispania Ignacio Prieto Vilas, Archaeologist. The reconstruction of the Pozo Moro monument Mariano Torres Ortiz, Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. Pozo Moro: between Phoenicians, Tartessians, and Iberians Teresa Chapa Brunet, Professor of Prehistory at the Complutense University of Madrid. Pozo Moro and Iberian sculpture Alberto J. Lorrio Alvarado, Professor of Prehistory at the University of Alicante and Director of the Studia Phoenicia series. The Publication of Pozo Moro as an Example of the Architecture of Power The Pozo Moro monument can be considered the first known architectural monument of ancient Hispania. It was discovered 50 years ago on an estate in Chinchilla de Montearagón, Albacete, when Iberian ashlars and sculptures were unearthed. Its owner, Dr. Carlos Daudén Sala, reported the find to the National Archaeological Museum, and excavations began. The Pozo Moro monument is one of the most important discoveries in 20th-century Spanish archaeology and has become an essential reference for studying the Mediterranean colonizations of the 1st millennium BC and Iberian archaeology. Its study allows us to understand the importance of Phoenician colonization in fostering the transition to urban life and its influence on the formation of Tartessos and on the origin and development of Iberian culture. From diverse perspectives to facilitate understanding, the participants offer an updated view of the Pozo Moro funerary monument, erected in the center of a sacred precinct as a visible image of the numen, or ‘spirit,’ of the Iberian dynastic buried within, thus serving as a testament to the ‘Architecture of Power.’ Its architectural and sculptural characteristics, along with its parallels, indicate that it was built around 500 BC by Aramean stonemasons originating from the Syro-Hittite region, although it was destroyed by an earthquake a few years later. A comprehensive, recently published monograph analyzes the numerous aspects of interest of this monument, such as the rites practiced, astronomical orientation, construction techniques, layout and metrology, its parallels in the Near East and Egyptian architecture, the construction process, the quarry, the workshop's work, and the stylistic and iconographic analysis of the reliefs and lions, as well as its historical context in the struggles for control of southeastern Hispania.