The work that is being carried out to uncover the secrets of the Cortijo de Acebedo site continues at a good pace, having reached its halfway point: phase three of the six phases of the General Research Project. In this stage, the excavation phase has already been completed and the focus is now on research, a new finding was made: two flints found inside two vessels located in a burial site of the Phoenician necropolis.

The flints have been discovered in the Historical Archive of Mijas, which these days is once again attended by the archaeo-anthropologist Victoria Peña, who is responsible for the anthropological study of the remains of the Phoenician necropolis of Cortijo de Acebedo. There, the expert, together with the team working at the site, is currently focused on the investigation of the interior of the seven urns located in the same burial in the necropolis. "With the collaboration and under the supervision of the anthropologist, we are going to carry out the excavation of these vessels in order to document the contents of their interior, whether they contain bone remains or not", said the coordinator of the Historical Heritage department, Desirée Piñero.

So far, two flint blades that could be associated with knives have been found inside two urns, but no bones, and there are still three more urns to be excavated out of the seven found in the same burial, as the rest were either broken or empty. "At the bottom of at least two of these vessels a flint blade has been found, which are normally associated with knives and are ritual objects. We had already found some more in the same space, but outside the urns. They are intentionally deposited at the bottom of the vessel, of course", Peña explained. 

No skeletal remains, for the moment

So far, none of the vessels already excavated have skeletal remains, so if they are not found in other urns, they will have to define whether it is a burial like those already located, i.e. primary cremation, in which the cremation of the deceased takes place in the grave itself, or secondary, which is when the cremation of the individual is in a pyre or 'ustrinum', with the bones being moved to be deposited in an urn or in a grave. Or to define if it is a space destined for another use. "This is one of our doubts, if one of the urns was the container for the bones of the deceased and all the rest belong to the deceased. We have to think about what else this space could be, because it is a ritual space for intentional rites, but what else could it be related to?", asked the archaeologist-anthropologist.

The Historical Heritage Department of the Mijas Town Hall expects to have the rest of the urns excavated and their contents sieved very soon, so that they can make further progress in the study of the funerary rites of this Phoenician necropolis, where 24 burials from the 7th and 6th centuries BC have been found.

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