The relationship of Barcelona with the sea it is narrow since the foundation of the city although there is still a lot of history to discover about the changes of its seafront. A recent study provides new data on this evolution that has made it possible to locate and document the zones
port that the boats would have used to anchor near the Catalan capital during the epoch
medieval.
Research indicates that these areas were close to the city and protected from the waves by bars of sand naturally formed, known as bars in the Middle Ages, until the port structures were built in the XV and XVI centuries. At the moment, the studied limit covers the part of the Kisses and this port area in medieval times would extend from the Via
Laietana – at the level of the Correos building – up to the old stream of Horta, the current boulevard
Prim, drawing a coastline approximately around what is today Pere IV street. Specifically, there would be two large areas for boats, one closer to Barcelona, in the neighborhood of riverbank, and a further one, in the Poblenou.
The study concludes that these protected areas would have been deep enough to anchor the ancient ships for at least seven to eight centuries, between the late antiquity and the late Middle Ages. The results have been extracted from the analysis of the sediments found in geological surveys and archaeological interventions.
The seafront of the city where the old port area would be located in medieval times
(Àlex Garcia / File)
“The historiographical tradition had commented that Barcelona in medieval times had a coastline that was very open to the sea and had no strictly port area. However, we have been able to document its configuration and confirm that there did exist some port areas that were more sheltered from the force of the sea, ”he points out. Santiago
Laugh, professor of the department of prehistory and archeology of the University of Barcelona (UB), one of the authors of the study together with Carme
I look, archeologist responsible for Pla
Ginger of the Servei Municipal d’Arqueologia of the Barcelona City Council, and Ramon
Julià, professor from the prehistory and archeology department of the UB.
“Barcelona since its foundation has been a maritime city and a powerful commercial enclave. It was nonsense that at this time there was no port, even if it was not one for the built use, but there were some port areas ”, highlights Miró.
We have been able to document and confirm that there did exist some port areas that were more sheltered from the force of the sea in medieval times ”
And what was this coastal front of the city like? The Besòs and the marine dynamics generated sheltered areas when the river deposited its sands that the waves could not launch directly into the sea, so natural sandstone barriers ended up forming. They were more or less parallel to the coast and about a kilometer away. Among them there were channels through which the boats accessed and some of these formations were underwater and others could come to emerge, as would have happened in medieval times with the well-known Maians island, located between what is now the Pla de Palau and the França station, say those responsible for the investigation. For this reason, one of the main concerns of the captains of the ships was that they ran aground on these sand bars. “A common scene was to enter and run aground on the bar, something that could do the boat very badly, not only because it ran aground but because of the waves,” Riera explains.
These protected areas would be deep enough, between five and seven meters below sea level, to be used from small fishing boats to cargo ships built on the Atlantic side, such as the sunken ship of medieval times found in 2008 in Barceloneta as a result of some works.
The port area extended along the entire coastal front almost to almost the old Horta stream, which could have been an old channel of the Besòs river, according to the authors of the study, recently published in the journal Rodis, specialized in disseminating original works focused on medieval and post-medieval archeology. In the studied areas of the Besòs area, as Miró explains, mixtures of fresh and salt water have been detected that “could even have been used to repair ships in Barcelona, in addition to the shipyards,” an aspect that they hope to continue investigating to “To form a clearer history of the port of Barcelona”.
It was nonsense that at this time there was no port in Barcelona, although it was not one for the built use, there were some port areas ”
Another interesting fact: the place name of Llacuna. The surveys have determined that in Poblenou, there was a freshwater lagoon – called La Llacuna – that lasted until the 18th-19th centuries.
In the end, the Besòs river itself destroyed these port areas protected from the waves throughout the 15th century. “There is such a brutal contribution of sediments from Besòs that it damages this anchorage area, fills it with sediments with a really surprising speed between 50 or 70 years. What the Besòs had given to Barcelona, the river itself takes away ”, says Riera. “It should not be ignored that the Besòs and Llobregat rivers in ancient times were important in the Mediterranean and had estuaries that later formed the delta, shaping the territory,” adds Miró.
Precisely, in the northeast area of the city, the first attempts at the construction of breakwaters were made during the 15th century, and in this area a jetty was built in the late 16th century. “Probably, the construction of port structures between the XV and XVII centuries respond to the need to talk about a sufficient setting that was being lost in the port sector of the city,” the study concludes.
A fast-paced port activity
Refering to exercise
port In Barcelona, the authors highlight that it was exciting during the medieval period. The person in charge of the Barcino Plan details that there are historical sources, writings and documents of the Consell de Cent with continuous references of ships arriving in the city. There are even archaeological data in which materials of imports of the century XIV, such as ceramics from Syria. “The sea and Barcelona have gone hand in hand. The development of the city cannot be understood as the great metropolitan nucleus that it is now without understanding this maritime trade that has given it life and wealth, “stresses the archaeologist.
The study has focused on the Besòs area and above all on geological data, although the authors would like to extend it to Montjuïc and the Llobregat river. Research is part of the projects Pla
Ginger and PaleoBarcino with an interdisciplinary work, which among other issues study the morphology and evolution of the landscape of the Barcelona coastline. “We are studying a city with two thousand years of history. Now we are a little further away from the beach, but in Roman times it was further into the city. Studies rethink the landscape and the city ”, Miró recalls.
The investigation has taken into account the documentation
historical and cartographic, the interventions
archaeological , as well as the analysis of the samples of the soundings. In total, the authors have accessed more than 200 reports
geotechnical facilitated by companies and the Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia, in addition to having made a dozen of their own.
In this sense, new geological surveys have allowed documenting levels of organic silts and clays in the direction of the Besòs river, in the Poblenou neighborhood, at levels and chronologies similar to those already observed in archaeological interventions a year ago in the Ribera neighborhood, in the Plaza Pau Vila and behind the Estació de França, so the authors of the study conclude that “both areas could have formed part of the same morphological structure” between late antiquity and the late Middle Ages.
On the other hand, radiocarbon dating has allowed us to determine that the organic remains found in sand and gravel, such as leaves, seeds, pineapples or bones of animal origin, would have a range of age between AD 880 and 1,400. The medieval port of Barcelona is no longer a little less known.
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