Buried Treasure: Alcúdia's Roman ports

It's not every day I guess that if you are a bar, shop, restaurant or home owner, you come to realise that beneath you are hugely significant archaeological remains. If you happen to be one of these owners in Puerto Alcúdia, this is exactly the realisation that will have dawned on you. Part of the port area is built slap bang on top of where the Romans once had a harbour.

It was always known that there had to have been a port. Documentary evidence from mediaeval times spoke of a "great gate" to the Roman port, and older documents mentioned the role that Alcúdia played in maritime trade between the mainlands of Spain and Italy. But where was the "great gate"?

The excavations of the Roman town of Pollentia in Alcúdia old town have been ongoing since the start of the 1950s, and they have always focussed on one area in which there are, among other things, remains of the forum and of the Roman theatre. They have never been broadened out, but it is now clear that Pollentia covered a much larger area. As it was one of the chief settlements of the Romans, it isn't altogether surprising that its size was such that it stretched from one bay to another, from Pollensa Bay to Alcúdia Bay.

In 2007 a fortuitous discovery was made; fortuitous, that is, unless you happened to have been the owner of a plot of land in Puerto Alcúdia who was having the plot cleared to make way for a housing development. Work was suspended, and has been ever since, when pottery was found which was in keeping with that from the Pollentia excavations, the outer limit of which was half a kilometre or more away.
This discovery, together with the theories of a French archaeologist, led the Council of Mallorca in 2010 to commission an aerial reconnaissance of the sea. The discovery suggested that the great gate might be located.

The gate itself has not been found, but nevertheless the findings of the radar survey confirm the existence not just of a wall and jetties in the port of Alcúdia but also the smaller port in the area of Barcarés on the bay of Pollensa. They exist but they are covered up by the sea bed.

In Roman times the sea went inland almost as far as where the Roman theatre is, i.e. roughly a kilometre from the contemporary shoreline. (And it might be noted that in the old town there is the Porta des Moll, i.e. port gate.) Hence, the property owners of Puerto Alcúdia know that they are sitting on what was once a mix of sea and the wetlands of Albufera and the walls of the Roman port.

The owners needn't worry. There won't be any demolition to attempt to recover the old port. Apart from anything else, there isn't any money to do so, and the lack of finance is such that detailed underwater study is unlikely to occur either. The Council of Mallorca, enthusiastic under the previous administration, has shown a distinct lack of interest now that it is run by the austere Partido Popular.

While the confirmation of the two ports is highly significant, the chances of it meaning a great deal are limited. The confirmation has led to suggestions of further boosts to tourism as well as enhancements to Mallorca's Roman heritage, but tourism will, I'm afraid, be singularly unimpressed. Tourists like to see something not to simply know that somewhere under the sea are a couple of jetties and a bit of old wall.

But there might yet be more to see and might yet be some underwater activity. It would all rather depend upon getting round the fact that the sea in the two bays is protected waters and upon private interests, both legitimate and less so.

It is reckoned that there was an awful lot of shipping traffic that passed through Alcúdia from Roman times. And this traffic means that there may be other remains hidden in the sea in the two bays - wrecks and buried treasure. Pots of gold and pieces of eight. Dumas, it seems, may have got the wrong island; it wasn't Monte Cristo after all.

Though investigations of what lies beneath the water are unlikely, there is now a real question as to how far the current land excavations might extend and what these might mean for land that is undeveloped. There is bound to be far more for the archaeologists to unearth. Should it be done though? The excavations at Pollentia have been happening for sixty years. Archaeology can take an awfully long time.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.