The excavations carried out in the lower part of the Cathedral of Valencia during the works, which aim to carry out the restoration and expansion of its Museum, have allowed for finding out, three metres deep, remains of a Roman street and of at least three houses dated from the 1st and 2nd centuries. This fact has consequences in the possibility that they can be crossed in a path that will be illuminated once the opening of the museum centre takes place, the Archbishopric communicated.
12 may 2016
The excavations carried out in the lower part of the Cathedral of Valencia during the works, which aim to carry out the restoration and expansion of its Museum, have allowed for finding out, three metres deep, remains of a Roman street and of at least three houses dated from the 1st and 2nd centuries. This fact has consequences in the possibility that they can be crossed in a path that will be illuminated once the opening of the museum centre takes place, the Archbishopric communicated.
The digs, that have been found under the chapels of San Francisco and San José, has made known the structures of three Roman rooms where the entry for each one of them, the lintels and water tanks remain, as well as a Roman fence with intertwined metal, as the information published in the diocesan journal Paraula details. In this path, already included in what will constitute the future visit to the Museum, there also appear “skeletal remains that, yet to be dated with an archaeological verification, could correspond to the 13th century, possibly belong to a disappeared parish that raised in the newly conquered Valencia, the San Pedro parish, near the Cathedral.”
The subterranean path meets in other room that has more human and construction remains that has direct link to the wall of the old Chapter House of the 14th century, today the chapel of the Holy Chalice. In the expansion tasks of the Museum there have been found also Gothic elements of what could be the atrium or cloister the Seo (square of the Cathedral) had when it was not yet joined to the Miguelete Tower.
On 2 May, these excavations as well as the rest of the expansion tasks of the Museum, were visited by the Cardinal Archbishop of Valencia, Antonio Cañizares, together with a representation of the diocesan Curia and of the Metropolitan Chapter. They were guided by Salvador Vila, the architect in charge of the conservation tasks of the Cathedral and responsible of the works.
