La fortaleza medieval de Isso (Albacete) y su territorio

This paper presents some of the information obtained during the archaeological surveys carried out in 2019 in the stately fortress known as Torre de Isso, located in the municipality of Hellín (Albacete). These fieldworks have attempted to answer some questions related to the historical interpretation of the preserved monumental remains, specifically two large towers and some walls from the second half of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The initial study and graphical documentation were carried out to obtain the data needed to draft a conservation project in line with current scientific criteria.Extending the investigation to the whole neighborhood of houses that surrounds the towers resulted in the discovery of a quadrangular fortress of 44 x 42 m, which incorporates the towers and in which different construction phases have been identified, certainly prior to and subsequent to the Christian conquest. The remains found were reused in the load-bearing walls of some of the houses. Beside the fortress, we extended the study to the entire village of Isso, in order to find out if the medieval castle had an annexed relevant village. Finally, the surveys expanded throughout the entire territory of Isso, with the desire to know if its characteristic dispersed settlement, made up of small farmhouses, and its traditional irrigation system, have a medieval origin.This multidisciplinary research project has allowed us to obtain extensive data and produce significant information, although it should be noted that many issues and some of the interpretations offered in this article are still hypothetical. Therefore, only future development of additional archeological and historical works will make it possible to tackle those questions that remain to be answered.

Aontia: un antico toponimo dalle Mappe Aragonesi

Aontia: an ancient toponym from the Aragon mapsThe Aragon geographical maps represent the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Naples. they date back to the second half of the fifteenth century, probably some of them or some copies were subsequently modified or updated. These ancient maps were rediscovered about thirty years ago in the State Archives of Naples and in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, and they have been under study for some years. They are unfortunately still little used in the scientific field, although several contributions have demonstrated their validity as an investigation tool thanks to their undoubted information potential. In fact, thanks to the very high degree of characterization of these maps it is possible to advance hypotheses and considerations of a historical-archaeological nature of the territories they represent. It is often toponymic analysis that offers insights and guides the early stages of research: toponyms relating to natural and anthropic elements inform about landscapes rich of medieval and classical references. The case study proposed here relates to the toponym Aontia, located on the Aragon maps near the centers of the Basilicata of Cirigliano and Gorgoglione. It is a place currently unidentified and not attested in any medieval or modern source; its toponym may refer to some references relating to an epithet of the well-known Greek divinity Artemis and to the presence of a sanctuary dedicated to it or to an ancient settlement. Starting from the analysis of the toponym Aontia, a localization proposal will be carried out based on the etymological and historical study, on the topographic survey and on the remote sensing analysis.

Asentamientos fortificados en el Rif Oriental (siglos VIII-XV). Nuevos datos sobre Ghassasa y Tazouda (Nador, Marruecos)

Fortified settlements in Eastern Rif (eighth-fifteenth centuries): new data on Ghassasa and Tazouda (Nador, Morocco)The present paper attempts to aproximate to the archaeological research of two of the most relevants fortified settlements of the Medieval Rif (north of Morocco), Ghassasa and Tazouda. Reviewing the written sources –Ibn Ḥawqal, al-Bakrī, al-Idrīsī, Ibn Ḥayyān, al-Bādisī, etc.– and comparing the data they offer with the archaeological records of surface, we report here the recent hypothesis deduced from the analysis of their emerging structures and pottery, trying to trace some new information of the fortification process in the Rif since Early Medieval centuries to the fifteenth century and to detect the development of the interrelations and influences by the commercial exchanges between twice Mediterranean coasts: North African and al-Andalus. So, we offer the planimetry of both settlements, Ghassasa and Tazouda, which haven´t been documented before, and also some typologies of Magrib’s medieval pottery founded there, contributing with an original research to the study of medieval urbanism in Magrib al-Aqṣā and the role that they take on the trade routes existing between Bilād al-Sūdān, to Siŷilmāsa, and al-Andalus.

L’uso della toponomastica come indicatore di insediamenti e strutture fortificate: il caso toscano

The use of toponymy as an indicator of settlements and fortified structures: the Tuscan caseThe purpose of this contribution is to analyze the spatial distribution of the place names referred to the Tuscan territory, to fortified structures and settlements, through the study of the place names recorded geodatabase RE.TO.RE. (Regional Toponymic Repertory) created by the Tuscany Region with the scientific contribution of the Universities of Pisa, Florence and Siena. The Tuscan toponyms has been the object of both a synchronic study within each of the cartographic sources that make up the geographical database, and a diachronic analysis between the temporal thresholds in which the archive is articulated. The database, extrapolated from cartographic supports, in fact covers a time span between the first decades of the nineteenth century (nineteenth century land registries) and the most recent information series produced in the regional context (Carta Tecnica Regionale). In the contribution, the place names related in various ways to different types of structures and fortified settlements, such as castle, fort, tower, fortress, has been analyzed both in relation to the distribution and spatial aspects, and in reference to their evolutionary dynamics (persistence, disappearance, transformation), with the aim of identifying possible relationships between the territory and the distribution in time and space of the different types of fortifications. From a methodological point of view, the study has been carried out, in addition to the traditional tools of the topomastic survey, especially taking advantage of the potential of spatial analysis functions typical of geographical information systems.

The Old Navarino fortification (Palaiokastro) at Pylos (Greece). Adaptation to early artillery

Old Navarino fortification (Palaiokastro) is located on the promontory supervising the naturally endowed Navarino-bay at the south-western foot of Peloponnese peninsula, near the contemporary city of Pylos. The cliff where it is built and where ancient relics lie, was fortified by Frankish in the thirteenth century. The fortification though knows significant alterations firstly by Serenissima Republic of Venice from the fifteenth century that aims to dominate the naval routes of Eastern Mediterranean by establishing a system of coastal fortifications and later by the Ottomans after the conquest of Venice’s possessions at Messenia in 1500. Between fifteenth and seventeenth century, apart from important modifications at the initial enceinte of the northern Upper City, the most notable transformation of Old Navarino is the construction of the new Lower fortification area at the south and the southern outwork ending up to the coastline. Especially the Lower fortification is a sample of multiple and large-scale successive alterations for the adjustment to technological advances of artillery (fortification walls reinforcement, modification of tower-bastions, early casemates, gate complex enforcements). The current essay focuses on the study of these specific elements of the early artillery period and the examination of Old Navarino’s strategic role at the time of transition before the adaptation of “bastion-front” fortification patterns, such as those experimented in the design of the fortified city of New Navarino, constructed at the opposite side of the Navarino gulf by the Ottomans (1573).

The superb Brazilian Fortresses of Macapá and Príncipe da Beira

During the eighteenth century Portugal developed a large military construction process in the Ultramarine possessions, in order to compete with the new born colonial trading empires, mainly Great Britain, Netherlands and France. The Portuguese colonial seashores of the Atlantic Ocean (since the middle of the sixteenth century) and of the Indian Ocean (from the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth century) were repeatedly coveted, and the huge Portuguese colony of Brazil was also harassed in the south during the eighteenth century –here due to problems in a diplomatic and military dispute with Spain, related with the global frontiers’ design of the Iberian colonies. The Treaty of Madrid (1750) had specifically abrogated the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) between Portugal and Spain, and the limits of Brazil began to be defined on the field. Macapá is situated in the western branch of Amazonas delta, in the singular cross-point of the Equator with Tordesillas Meridian, and the construction of a big fortress began in the year of 1764 under direction of Enrico Antonio Galluzzi, an Italian engineer contracted by Portuguese administration to the Commission of Delimitation, which arrived in Brazil in 1753. In consequence of the political panorama in Europe after the Seven Years War (1756-1763), a new agreement between Portugal and Spain was negotiated (after the regional conflict in South America), achieved to the Treaty of San Idefonso (1777), which warranted the integration of the Amazonas basin. It was strategic the decision to build, one year before, the huge fortress of Príncipe da Beira, arduously realized in the most interior of the sub-continent, 2000 km from the sea throughout the only possible connection by rivers navigation. Domingos Sambucetti, another Italian engineer, was the designer and conductor of the jobs held on the right bank of Guaporé River, future frontier’s line with Bolivia. São José de Macapá and Príncipe da Beira are two big fortresses Vauban’ style, built under very similar projects by two Italian engineers (each one dead with malaria in the course of building), with the observance of the most exigent rules of the treaties of military architecture.

El castillo de San Luis (Estepona Málaga): Origen y evolución de una fortificación abaluartada. Siglos XVI-XXI

The castle of San Luis (Estepona Málaga): Origin and evolution of a bastion fort. Sixteenth to twenty-first centuriesThe results of the investigation prior to the excavation work in the Castle of San Luis, in Estepona (Málaga, Spain) are presented. It is a coastal fortress built in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, in the context of the reorganisation of the defense of the western coast of Malaga after the Moorish rebellion of 1568. After analysing the available literature, we propose that it was designed by the Engineer Juan Ambrosio Malgrá, Maestro Mayor de obras del Reino de Granada. The Castle of San Luis is devised as an add-on construction on the southern front of the walls of Islamic origin, dominating the natural anchorage of the Rada beach. Its most prominent elements are three bastions, two of them with casemates, and a large main square. However, various defects in the design and execution of the works, added to the insufficient provision of artillery and garrison, affected the effectiveness of the fortification throughout its history. In the middle of the eighteenth century, part of the Castle of San Luis is restructured as a cannons’ battery. Following the damage caused by the Lisbon Earthquake, in 1755, and by the French and English blastings in 1812, during the second half of the nineteenth century much of the castle disappears, leaving only the cannons’ battery, which is incorporated as a courtyard in height as an add-on to a house built at the end of the nineteenth century. At present, after several decades of abandonment, excavation works have been undertaken on the remains of the battery, after which the site will be prepared to be used as a museum.

Droni e fotogrammetria moderna per il rilievo dei castelli

Drones and modern photogrammetry for castlesCastles, often built on hills with extremely steep slopes, or on sea cliffs overlooking stretches of water, were difficult to conquer. Construction techniques and geomorphology of the area were a key factor in making castles impregnable to sieges of military troops or bands of pirates or robbers. Today, the same characteristics make them difficult to survey. In fact, there are huge difficulties in surveying fortified structures on the top of hills or on the edge of a precipice. Such geomorphological features sometimes make the survey difficult, time consuming and expensive and unsafe for operators. Today, these problems can be reduced through the use of drones and photogrammetric processing tools which are based on Structure from Motion algorythms and are easy to use. This method allows us to acquire data with geometric resolution in order to map and study masonry characteristics, as well as analyze and monitor decay and crack patterns for restoration purposes. In this paper, we will discuss the potential of drones and modern photogrammetry techniques in architectural surveys and applied to three case studies. These include the castle of Isabella Morra in Valsinni (Basilicata, South Italy), perched on a cliff; the medieval citadel of Uggiano in Ferrandina (Basilicata, South Italy) in an advanced state of degradation and on a plateau with high geological risk; and the San Fernando Fuerte to Bocochita (Cartagena de Indias, Colombia) overlooking the sea.

Implantación territorial y análisis arquitectónico de los búnkeres del Subsector IV del estrecho de Gibraltar (Conil, Vejer y Barbate)

Territorial implantation and architectural analysis of the bunkers on Subsector IV, Strait of Gibraltar (Conil, Vejer and Barbate)The fortified system executed on the north bank of the Strait of Gibraltar from 1939 pursued two objectives: an offensive one, for which coastal batteries and lighting projectors were installed; and a defensive one, for which around four hundred reinforced concrete bunkers were built for machine guns and / or anti-tank guns along the coastal strip that runs from San Roque to Conil de la Frontera. According to the military archive documentation, the device for the defense of the land front and against landings on the coast was organized into four subsectors, designated with roman numerals from east to west. Subsector IV, the westernmost, extends from Barbate to Conil, through Vejer de la Frontera. Divided into two resistance centers, it is the one that contained the lowest density of positions, with a total of twenty-seven pillboxes. This communication has a double purpose. On the one hand, deepen the territorial implantation of the bunker network of Subsector IV, to understand that is fundamental the systemic conception between them and between them and the whole set of bunkers. Secondly, to carry out an individual and specific architectural analysis of each one of the works, focusing on the constructive characteristics and the existence of possible typological relationships.

Architetture difensive nelle valli dello Ziz e del Todhra in Marocco

Defensive architecture in the Ziz and Todhra valleys in MoroccoThe earthen architecture of the Todhra and Ziz Valleys in Southern Morocco takes us back to the basic and archetypal forms of building in the Mediterranean. Architectural typology and language together form a cultural background that is strongly rooted in the territory and its inhabitants: the Berbers. The architectures, fragile and in constant decay, represent a treatise of living architecture in which the shapes, proportions and decorations are repeated over time with continuity.This research tries to verify, with data coming from direct and instrumental surveys, the quality and diffusion of the architectures that dot the valleys of the Todhra and the Ziz which, at same time, host the population and defend the most precious asset: water. Along the valleys, united by the same language, we find: igherm, fortified citadels; tighremt, fortress houses.