Saitabi is the magazine of the Faculty of Geography and History at the University of Valencia-General Studies, inherited from its ancestor predecessor, the historic Faculty of Philosophy and Literature.
In 1940, José Chocomeli Galán (1893-1946), expert and archaeologist from Xàtiva, distinguished during the civil war for the safeguard of artistic and bibliographic resources, founded the publication. Chocomeli was then the Valencian delegate of the Servicio de Recuperación del Patrimonio Artístico Nacional (Recovery of the National Artistic Heritage Service), sponsor entity of the newsletter. The magazine owed its name, which was the name of the Iberian city of Xàtiva, to the fact that, although it was printed in the Valencian Semana Gráfica, the editorial department was located in that town. For the same reason, the covers and front page of Saitabi issues held for many years the symbol (until the 9th issue, 1952-1953) a small etching of the Iberian rider that is found in the front of the setabitanas (from Xàtiva) coins of the Iberian period. The magazine was firstly quarterly published, with the sub-heading Noticiario de Historia, Arte y Arqueología de Levante (Newsletter of History, Art and Archaeology of Levant), and from the first moment it counted with collaborations from the university world, in the field of History, Archaeology and Art.
From the 3rd issue, corresponding to 1942, the magazine was adopted by the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, as a body of the Laboratorio de Arqueología y Ciencias Auxiliares (Laboratory of Archaeology and Auxiliary Sciences) and under the direction of the Americanist historian and full university professor Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois. The Provincial Concil and the City Council of Valencia sponsored the edition, as other city councils and provincial boards did later, an essential contribution regarding the difficult economic viability of the publication. From the 4th volume, 1945, Saitabi became the official magazine of the Faculty, as a body of the Historical Research Institutes “Roc Chabàs” and “Joan Baptista Muñoz”, the later devoted to Americanism studies, of which the dean of the centre, then the full university professor Francesc Alcayde Vilar, was its director. However, the edition stopped with the 9th volume (1953).
The magazine went back to press with the 10th volume, 1960, by the secretary of the Faculty, the archaeologist professor Tarradell. It was then, with the new strength acquired by the centre thanks to the addition of distinguished full university professors, such as the doctors Miquel Dolç, José María Jover, the forenamed Miquel Tarradell, Antonio López Gómez, Joan Reglà or Antonio Ubieto, among others, that assured one of the periods of greatest scientific activity and external prestige, Saitabi acquires its final configuration, with annual volumes, which were uninterruptedly published to the present. With the 28th volume, 1978, the headline stared to show the name of the Faculty of Geography and History, created by the division of the former Faculty of Philosophy and Literature into three new humanities faculties. In the past decades, the magazine has accepted the edition of monographs of several specialties and, occasionally, the academic homages to different professors. The 2013 has arrived to the 62nd-63rd volume, with which Saitabi has become in one of the oldest living university magazines in Spain.
Currently, Saitabi is directed by the dean of the Faculty, who chairs an Editorial Council that consists of professors from the different Departments of the centre and other scientific institutions. The magazine counts with the collaboration of an Advisory Council formed by renowned specialists, as well as an external assessment system which ensures the academic rigour of the published studies.
[M. R. L.]
