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Fig. 2.
View of the site,
watchtower, hermitage
and inn.
By leaving access to the site open we were obliged to completely
integrate the archaeological set with the other spaces at the site and
particularly with the route taken by visitors to the peak of the mountain.
Until work was carried out at the site, the settlement which is
situated at the extreme margin of the upper platform of the mountain
was rarely visited. However, afterwards the settlement became integrated
into the circular route allowing visitors to visit all the elements
within the set.
In addition, we had to take into account that some visitors would
only be interested in a superficial observation of the site. Therefore,
two spaces were integrated into the access points enabling visitors
to get an overall view of the archaeological remains without having
to access them purposely. Simultaneously, these spaces permitted
visitors access to an oratory which is very popular among local
people. In short, it could be considered that by providing access to
the site the route to the peak of the Sant Sebastià Mountain was improved
and the site was integrated with the other heritage elements.
These access points acted as access and observation points for the
archaeological remains and permitted access to the oratory, an element
deeply rooted to local popular culture.
Once we had decided on a model of access the second element taken
into account related to which archaeological remains were to be
displayed: the older phase, the more modern one or both simultaneously.
Finally, a decision was made to display remains from
the more modern phase. We arrived at this conclusion almost by
a process of elimination. If we had wished to display remains from
the earlier period the more modern ones would have been destroyed.
Destroying archaeological remains in the context of a conservation
project would be a contradiction. Leaving the two phases would
have made it difficult for visitors to understand the site, given the
level of overlapping between the two structures. Additionally, it
would have been impossible to maintain the modern phase due to
its stratigraphic location. On the other hand, displaying only the
modern phase guaranteed the conservation of both phases and ensured
visitors’ understanding of the site. In order to achieve this, the
structures in the oldest phase were buried up to the point where they
reached the second phase.
As already mentioned, the archaeological remains were in quite a
precarious state of preservation. Thus, consolidation work had to be
carried out on the walls and other archaeological structures. Given
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