La Fortalesa

Located in Arbeca (Les Garrigues), this settlement was constructed 2,800 years ago within the plain, avoiding the near-by hills, making it unique within the Catalan Iberian world.

A five-metre thick wall, a dozen towers, a barrier of fixed stones (chevaux-de-frise) and a ditch made it practically impregnable. It was quite possibly the residence of a military leader or prince, a symbol of power for the communities in the surronding territory.

The fortress was built around the year 750 BC and inhabitated continuously for four hundred years until ca. the year 325 BC when it was abandoned. Its builders belonged to the "fields of urns" cultural group, a name derived from their custom of cremating the dead and interring the ashes in pottery vessels. Two hundred years later, contact with other Mediterranean culture brought about the "Iberization" of the people of Els Vilars and they became a part of the people known by the ancient writers as the Ilergetas.

The interior layout was organized radially around a square presided over by a large well. The houses were built up against the wall and their doors opened out onto a paved street that ran parallel to the wall. From this street other roads ran radially towards the square and the entrance gates of the enclosure. Significant modifications were carried out during the subsequent centuries: the western postern was filled in and another, protected by towers, was opened to the north, a new network of streets was introduced and the dwellings became ever more spacious and complex.

There appears to have been no traumatic or violent reason for the abandonment of the fortress in the mid-4th century BC. It was not destroyed, just vacated. One thing seems clear -there was ver little room inside the settlement. The walls, the ditch and the defences that had been the reason for the settlement became, centuries later, an obstacle to its growth.