LLANO DE LA CONSOLACIÓN
Albacete, Spain.
Site 2.5 km from Montealegre del Castillo and
5 km from the Cerro de los Santos. The site is extensive
and crescent-shaped, with a maximum length of 400 m.
At the horns of the crescent are the Iberian settlements
of Cerro de los Castellares and Cerrico de Don Rodrigo.
The finds, from sporadic excavation of only a small part
of the site, are mostly in the National Archaeological
Museum in Madrid, the Louvre, and the Albacete Archaeological Museum. The oldest finds, such as an archaic
Greek bronze representing a satyr, date from the 6th c.
B.C.
Originally the Llano de la Consolación appears to have
been occupied by the graves of the inhabitants of the
Cerro de los Castellares and of the Cerro de Don Rodrigo. Of the graves excavated in 1946 and 1947, the oldest contain no objects earlier than the 4th c. B.C. but
fragments of Iberian statues were reused in their construction. Habitation sites, which do not appear to have
been established earlier than the 3d c. B.C. continued
into Imperial times. The Roman settlement is documented by finds of Roman incineration graves and of
many inhumation graves, dating from the Early Empire.
None of the fragments of Iberian sculpture or architectural elements were found in their original locations;
they had been reused as building material either in the
Iberian cemeteries or in Roman constructions. Among
the sculptures there are more human than zoomorphic
representations, and more males, usually warriors, than
females. All are busts with the exception of one relief,
now in the Murcia Archaeological Museum, representing
a native goddess, protectress of horses, a pre-Roman cult
well documented in SE Spain.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. P. Serrano, “La Plaine de la Consolación et la ville ibérique de Ello,”
Bulletin Hispanique 1
(1899) 11-19
M; J. Zuazo,
Trabajos arqueológicos en
Montealegre del Castillo (1920); A. García y Bellido,
La Dama de Elche y el conjunto de piezas arquelógicas
reingresadas en España en 1941 (1943); J. Sánchez Jiménez,
Excavaciones y trabajos arqueológicos en la provincia de Albacete, de 1942 a 1946 (1947); id., “Llano de
la Consolación (Albacete),”
Noticiaro Arqueológico Hispánico 1 (1952) 92-96; A. Fernández de Avilés, “Excavaciones en el Llano de la Consolación,”
Archivo de Prehistoria Levantina 4 (1953) 195, 209
MPI.
A. BALIL
