This afternoon the plenary session of Calpe Town Council will debate the declaration of 2025 as the year of the 20th anniversary of the Ifach Project. The Ifach Project was launched in 2005 as an archaeological investigation aimed at documenting the archaeological remains of a medieval settlement on the slopes of the Ifach Rock.
The project investigates the remains of a newly founded Christian town that was built at the end of the 13th century - 1297 - under the mandate of Roger de Llúria, Admiral of the Crown of Aragon, and which was partially destroyed in 1359 amid the Castilian-Aragonese conflict and abandoned around 1400.
This project was launched by the Provincial Council of Alicante, through the Archaeological Museum of Alicante (MARQ) in close collaboration with the Department of the Environment of the Regional Government of Valencia and Calpe Town Council.
With a large multidisciplinary scientific team, led by Dr José Luis Menéndez Fueyo, since 20025 there have been several campaigns involving the participation of hundreds of volunteers from Spanish and European universities. Over the years, the Ifach Project has exceeded expectations and generated an important source of knowledge about the medieval history of Calpe and its territory.
To celebrate the anniversary of the start of this important research project, the Town Council intends to declare 2025 as the year of the 20th Anniversary of the Ifach Project in the municipality of Calpe. For this task it is considered appropriate to set up, under the organisational dependence of the Mayor's Office, a Commission to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the Ifach Project, which will oversee establishing the guidelines for the elaboration of commemorative actions and activities, as well as approving the general programme of the events to be carried out.
History of La Pobla de Ifach
La Pobla de Ifach in Calpe
spread over 70,000 square metres to the north of the Rock and had an immense wall 800 metres long. The exterior of the wall was used for the deposition of material and organic remains. Today, 200 metres of the great wall are preserved in the northern area, as well as ten projecting towers. The best preserved is the bell tower, which is 10 metres high.
The enclave is completed by a complex entrance system consisting of three gates, where there is a two-storey building identified as a space where the power and administration of the House of Llúria was housed, as well as different rooms, warehouses and houses where the settlers resided and which are currently the subject of study and research.
La Pobla de Ifach de Calpe began to be built in the 13th century, under the direction of Admiral Roger de Llúria. This land was given to this historical figure by the Crown in recognition of his role as a military man and diplomat in the Mediterranean during the Christian conquest (between 1232 and 1245 under the reign of Jaume I).
There he began the project in 1297 with the intention of occupying the territories that had belonged to the Muslims and using the population of Christian settlers (from the central and western regions of Catalonia) who, until then, had been scattered throughout the farmsteads of the castral district of Calpe.
The head of the family was responsible for the construction of the first structures and walls of the town until his death in 1305. The absence of his son and male heir Roger de Llúria y Lancia meant that it was the widow Saurina d'Entença and her daughter Margarita de Llúria y Entença who were responsible for its completion. With the intention of showing off the power and prestige of the family, the latter ordered the construction of a large church dedicated to Our Lady of the Angels.
The history of La Pobla de Ifach de Calpe is rather short-lived, as it only lasted about 100 years. In the 14th century, the population moved to what is now the historic centre and the walled area of Calpe due, among other reasons, to the War of the Two Peters between the crowns of Castile and Aragon, which particularly affected the Valencian region. In 1359 the town was partially destroyed by the Castilian-Genoese fleet and was finally abandoned despite some attempts at repopulation at the beginning of the 15th century.