In a place where legends used to say that witches and bandits hid, on Thursday afternoon neighbours and visitors met to discover the past of the municipality. The Cova de les Bruixes hosted the dissemination day ‘La nit de les bruixes’, a family activity that combined a guided tour of the site with a practical excavation workshop in which the youngest ones were the main protagonists.
The activity began with an interpretive visit. Those in charge of guiding the public, through two groups, on this journey through time were the archaeologists of the Patrimony Office of the Council, Humberto García and Alejandro Gomis, accompanied by the professor of Archaeology at the University of Alicante, Feliciana Sala. Together they interpreted the stones and the past of this key site, explaining the importance of the preserved remains and the historical value hidden in the cave.
One of the strong points of this meeting was to show the residents the result of the recent improvement works carried out in the Cova de les Bruixes. The Council has integrated into the complex a delimited and protected interpretive itinerary and a sandpit designed precisely for informative actions.
And that new sandbox was quickly put to the test. In the second part of the afternoon, the two disseminators from the specialised company Didaktia took over with the participatory workshop ‘Archaeologists for a day’. The youngest ones put themselves in the shoes of true archaeology professionals.
Once the sandpit was converted into a scale site, the children played at digging and unearthed remains of bones, fragments of pottery and pieces of metal, among others. But the task does not end when the «treasure» is found: following the scientific method, the participants had to document, measure and record each find as if they were real researchers, thus understanding in a practical way how human history is constructed from the fragments of the past.
With initiatives such as ‘La nit de les bruixes’, El Poble Nou de Benitatxell not only consolidates the Cova de les Bruixes as a visitable, orderly and accessible space, but also demonstrates that the best way to protect heritage is to teach people to love it from childhood.
