Republican coin found in the field of Albatera. Felipe Mejías
Miguel Lamiel, a prisoner in the Francoist concentration camp of Albatera (pop. 12,000, Alicante), recounted in his memoirs, published by the CNT of Zaragoza, that a group of Falangists entered the Alicante prison "so that all the prisoners we would give our watches, our rings, money, fountain pens and other usable objects”.
Through "intimidation and looting", they plundered everything they could and, the next day, the press at the time reported that "the reds from the Albatera field" had made "a donation of fourteen million pesetas to the Caudillo". .
During the second campaign on the ground, paid for with aid from the Department of Democratic Quality of the Valencian Generalitat, and with the collaboration of the San Isidro City Council (2,146 inhabitants), in whose term the plots are currently located, the Mejías team already found in 2021 "a gold child's ring, probably swallowed by a prisoner", in one of the siphonic chests of the latrines.
One year later, "the pattern is confirmed," continues Mejías, with the intensive full-coverage prospecting that the seven members of the archaeological group have carried out on three plots totaling some 70,000 square meters, for a month and a half, which they have just given for finished.
Aerial view of the excavation in the Albatera ravine.
Felipe Mejias
Along with the usual finds of "ammunition, insignia, rivets, tools, buckles or tubes of ointment", the team that maps the center, which once housed some 14,000 prisoners, has found several samples of the treasures that the prisoners tried to use as bargaining chip or safe-conduct to freedom.
Two silver coins stand out, says Mejías.
The first, of eight reales from 1809, the time of Fernando VII.
The second, five Swiss francs, minted in 1908. "Republican money was devalued," explains the director of the excavation, "and the citizens began to hoard pieces of silver" to buy anything that would allow them to continue living and escape the country. .
"Many of the inmates of Albatera", Mejías continues, "were captured in the port of Alicante", the last republican redoubt,
The survey, which lasted from October 17 to the end of November, also allowed them to find "a silver chain from a pocket watch" and "a woman's watch" of art deco design, "possibly made of silver and belonging
to
someone with a high economic position”, according to Mejías.
This jewel remained hidden "in an area near the fence of the field", without there being an apparent reason that could explain its location.
"Perhaps they buried it to come back to look for it" and there it remained, with the hands stopped at the exact moment in which it disappeared.
Pharmacy
Another aspect that has corroborated the search for metallic materials carried out this year is the poor diet of the prisoners, based almost exclusively on cans of lentils and sardines.
As Mejías already recounted, “the prisoners received “a can every two days for two people and a piece of bread for five”.
During the period in which the Albaterense camp housed a 14-hectare Republican prison, between October 1937 and March 1939, "the inmates were well fed, with sardines, oranges or Argentine canned meat," says the archaeologist.
Under Franco's rule, already as a concentration camp, in which detainees "were identified, registered, redistributed by prisons and lacked legal guarantees", hunger and intestinal diseases led the causes of death inside.
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Among the material discovered, "a stopper of Ceregumil, a tonic for honey and cereals from the 1930s" has appeared.
Also, "a piece of a purple bottle with part of an inscription that says ORT and that" the specialist in archeology of the 20th century Andrea Moreno has identified as syrup from Doctor Trigo", the creator of Trinaranjus, "a lemon extract that It was used as a cleanser and laxative.
Finally, in a chest in the latrines there was "a piece of a bottle with the inscription CAR" which, according to Moreno, is carabaña water, "a mineral-medicinal water with a lot of sulfur that was also used as a laxative."
Mejías has sent "sediments from the chest" to the University of Valencia, "to see if there are traces of food, inactive bacteria, larvae or intestinal parasites" that reveal "in what conditions the prisoners lived."
Mejías anticipates that for next year they have already requested a line of subsidies from the Ministry of the Presidency and another from the Department of Democratic Quality, in order to "continue prospecting terraces in search of mass graves", the priority objective of the investigation.
The intention is for the Valencian Generalitat to buy "six of the 14 hectares of total land in the field for its musealization as the first archaeological site of the Civil War."
Military ammunition and paramilitary executions
Every time the group of archaeologists finds a piece on the grounds of the Albatera field, they send a GPS signal to show its exact location.
In this way they have been able to discover that much of the percussion ammunition, fired with the rebellious army's mausers, is found grouped in the area where the watchtowers of the detention center were erected.
During the two years of excavation, fired bullets have also appeared "on an open field esplanade, where, according to witnesses, prisoners were shot."
And, “as is often the case throughout Spain”, archaeologists have also found “ammunition from the Third Carlist War, lead balls from muzzle-loading weapons or Lefaucheux cartridges, manufactured between 1876 and 1878″,
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