Murcia, Excavations of San Esteban

For several months there has been the most almighty rumpus taking place in Murcia over the "Yacamiento arabe de San Esteban."

Thousands of columns of impassioned debate have filled the papers for months now as the story rode the rollercoaster of public opinion, day after day, twisting and bucking as protests, judicial actions, official reports and politicians rendered it almost impossible to follow, but now, finally,  the drama has a conclusion. 

Most established cities have a parking problem, more specifically, a lack of parking problem, so in 2003 a project was proposed to build a new underground car park in the San Esteban district, a proposal which was met by a rain of protests and petitions, many fearing that archaeological remains lay beneath the proposed construction site.

Since 2005, literally dozens of attempts have been made to stop the project going ahead, several judicial processes instigated, petitions submitted and impassioned speeches published, all ignored, rebuffed or dismissed ,and in April 2009 the digging finally began.

 

Surprise,  surprise, almost as soon as the first diggerload of earth came out of the site, up popped the anticipated archaeological remains, but on a much larger scale than anyone had imagined

The protests started immediately and archaeologists pronounced that the ruins found were Mediaeval Murcia, dating from the time when Murcia was an arab city, but the Culture dept decided they were of little archaeological  interest and the parking should go ahead.

At this point the candle-lit vigils and "plataformas" to defend the ruins erupted into a frenzy, wheeling in the archaeological big guns from Madrid who declared the ruins to be of outstanding importance and Culture was forced to back-paddle, deciding to remove the ruins, build the car park, then put them back on the top as an archaeological "park".

Ham-fisted builders started to dismantle the ruins onto pallets for removal.

Outrage erupted and the courts intervened.

On the 10^th December, Murcian Court Number 1 ordered that the works be paralysed, banning the removal of any other further remains or their re-location.

The President of the Region, Ramon Luis Valcarcel , always sensitive to the slight tremors of movement in the breezes of a political wind, cancelled the parking project, and throughout the last 2 months a stream of reports have criticized damage suffered by the exposed remains,  lashed by winds, flooded and buried beneath freak snow storms.

For a while financing was sought to construct a domed cover over the exposed excavations, but times are tight, and money in short supply, so the decision has finally been taken to recover them with protective geotextiles, then re-enterre beneath a layer of sand and gravel until the money can be found to construct a museum above the remains and protect them for posterity.

For at least the next year the ruins will lie in their gravel grave whilst the politicians scrabble for a bit of cash to construct yet another museum, with a garden Plaza above it, and meanwhile, the hunt is still on for a piece of land with no ruins beneath it, on which to construct the much-needed parking for visitors to the cities' museums.

In a city dripping with history, built on the ruins of its' past,  it may be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

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