SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, March 27 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, in collaboration with the Cabildo de La Palma and the Town Hall of Villa de Mazo, will celebrate the sixty years since the discovery of the La Cucaracha necropolis (Villa de Mazo) with a day of talks, an exhibition and the presentation of an unpublished audiovisual short on the first archaeological intervention that was carried out at the site in 1963.
The activity will take place this Friday, March 31, starting at 5:30 p.m., at the Casa Roja Museum in Villa de Mazo, with free admission until full capacity is reached.
The necropolis of La Cucaracha is one of the most interesting archaeological sites on La Palma on the funerary customs of the Benahoarita society. It is a natural escarpment located on the Montaña de las Tabaibas where cremation was practiced for centuries.
Sixty years ago the first archaeological intervention was carried out in this space, by Miriam Cabrera, Antonio Soler, Ramón Martín and Amílcar Morera, among other archeology enthusiasts. This excavation significantly expanded knowledge about the island’s aboriginal past, but also opened up new lines of study about funerary rites.
To commemorate this first contact with the archaeological site, this informative conference is held, focused on the history of the investigation, the results of the excavations as well as the conservation of the archaeological heritage.
DAY OF TALKS
The opening ceremony, at 5:30 p.m., will be attended by Nona Perera, General Director of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands; Jovita Monterrey, Minister of Culture and Historical Heritage of the Cabildo de La Palma; Goretti Pérez, mayoress of Villa de Mazo; and Felipe Jorge Pais, director of the Benahoarita Archaeological Museum (MAB).
The day of talks will begin at 6:00 p.m. with the intervention of the director of the latest archaeological excavation campaigns at the site, Nuria Álvarez, resumed in 2013 by the Department of Culture and Historical Heritage of the Cabildo de La Palma. The presentation will focus on ‘The fire in the Benahoaritas funerary sites: the necropolis of La Cucaracha’.
Next, the doctor in Archaeology, Felipe Jorge Pais, will participate with a talk on “Life and death in the surroundings of the necropolis of La Cucaracha” and the also doctor in Archaeology, Juan Francisco Navarro, will focus his presentation on the role of Miriam Cabrera within the conservation of the archaeological heritage of La Palma.
AUDIOVISUAL AND EXHIBITION
After the talks, at 7:30 p.m., the audiovisual short ‘First exploration in the Cueva de La Cucaracha’ (1963) belonging to the Amílcar Morera collection, an archive that was deposited in the Canary Film Library by his grandson Miguel Ángel Toledo, will be presented. In this section, María Calimano, director of Filmoteca Canaria, will intervene; and Miriam Cabrera, researcher and participant in the archaeological intervention.
Finally, at 8:00 p.m. the exhibition ‘The necropolis of La Cucaracha: between fire and volcanoes’ will be inaugurated. 60 years of the discovery of the archaeological site’, with pieces from the Benahoarita Archaeological Museum (MAB) that had never been shown to the public before.
Lava blocks with embedded human remains, vessels from the first phases and bone pieces, among others, are some of the vestiges belonging to the Miriam Cabrera collection and the latest archaeological excavations in the necropolis that will be exhibited together with explanatory panels in the Museum Casa Roja until May 20 from Monday to Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. with free admission.
