THE KNIGHT OF IFACH

In 2014, the MARQ research team working in the Pobla de Ifach in Calp discovered the remains of a large building next to the access system to the medieval town, which we call Domus Lauria. It is a caput mansum or construction destined for the accommodation and exercise of the lordly power of the representatives and members of the House of Lauria, lords of Ifach, during their stays in the territory or castrum of Calp during the first half of the 14th century.

Among the remains was a fragment of a wall showing a medieval knight, painted in graphite, wearing a helmet with chain mail and holding a shield in his left hand, from which a heraldic emblem also appears in the wind. This coat of arms is not born of the artist's whim, but has an owner. It corresponds to the arms of the Ampuritan branch of the Casal de Barcelona, specifically of Juan I of Aragon and Xérica, who was Count of Ampurias between 1364 and 1398, and whose troops defended Ifach and the territory of the castrum of Calp during the siege of King Peter I of Castile in the winter of 1365 in the conflict known as the War of the Two Peters (1356-1369).

Through this piece, the research carried out has been able to demonstrate all the details of this fatal attack that resulted in the decline of the medieval town and the progressive abandonment of a population that ended up occupying the current enclaves of Calp, Benissa and Teulada.