Rivers, Roads and Archaeology

 It is a day where, to be honest, we have little to do but enjoy the view.  We will cross the Matarrana River and so we can wax lyrical about its 97kms.  It rises in Beceite at the confluence of two ravines.   Apparently this is one of the few rivers with native Spanish crayfish.



While the river is small and locally formed, the N-420 is a whole 803km. It begins east of Cordoba and a lot of it through windmill swept landscapes until it ends in Tarragona.  

What shall we do now?  Well, we mentioned Juan Cabre Aguilo recently. Let us have a look at him.  Juan was born in Calaceite on 2nd August 1882.  He completed his early studies in Tortosa and Zaragoza then went to Madrid with a scholarship from the Teruel Provincial Council. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and produced some work for the Prado Museum .




Sebastián Monserrat of Zaragoza,  introduced him to his collection of pieces from the Iberian culture . As early as 1907, Cabré published his first archaeological work in the Bulletin of the Royal Academy of Letters of Barcelona on the excavations in the Iberian settlement of San Antonio de Calaceite. He was then appointed Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of History and appointed to the preparation of the Monumental Catalogue of Spain , specifically that of the province of Teruel .




Cabré began his research on Iberian culture in the south of the peninsula in 1917, but soon turned his attention to the Celtic villages of central Spain with the excavations of Las Cogotas , Castro de los Castillejos (Sanchorreja) and Castro de la Mesa de Miranda.  He worked with his daughter, Encarnación Cabré.




After the end of the Civil War , Cabré was dismissed as head of the Cerralbo Museum , although in 1940 he was appointed head of the Prehistory section of the Diego de Velázquez Institute of Art and Archaeology . In July 1942, he won a competitive examination for the position of trainer of the Prehistory and Antiquity section of the National Archaeological Museum , a position he held until his death In Madrid on 2nd August 1947.



Tomorrow we head north.


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