Biographical notes on Antonio Valcárcel, Count of Lumiares

The figure of Antonio Valcárcel, Count of Lumiares, is essential for understanding the origins of Valencian archaeology. A participant in the current of enlightened thought in Spain in the second half of the 18th century, his early intellectual relationship with Luis José de Velázquez, Marquis of Valdeflores, and later with the brothers Juan Antonio and Gregorio Mayans, led him to study numismatics, ceramics and especially Roman inscriptions with epigraphic compilations as important as those referring to the Kingdom of Valencia and Cartagena. He was one of the first to carry out archaeological excavations to verify the classical sources and from this activity he was able to conclude, for example, that the Lucentum cited by Pliny or Pomponius Mela had its site in the Tossal de Manises (la Albufeteta, Alicante).