Archaeologists have confirmed a rare Byzantine fort in Spain at the archaeological site of El Monastil, near Elda in Alicante, identifying it as a fortified monastic settlement established by soldiers and clergy of the Eastern Roman Empire in the second half of the 6th century.
The findings, published in SALDUIE by lead researcher Antonio M. Poveda Navarro of the Fundación Urbs Regia, draw on decades of excavation and a broad range of artifacts pointing to a site that moved from Byzantine hands to Visigothic control and eventually became an early Islamic religious enclave.
A strategic outpost along Rome’s ancient Spanish highway
The site, known in ancient Latin sources as Elo or Elum, sits 28.5 kilometers (17.7 miles) from Ilici, present-day Elche, a city researchers widely accept as Byzantine-occupied, and roughly 120 kilometers (74.6 miles) from Carthago Spartaria, modern Cartagena, which served as the Byzantine capital in Hispania.
Its position along a branch of the Via Augusta, the main Roman road, gave it strategic value for controlling movement through the Vinalopó corridor.
The physical evidence is substantial. Researchers identified two iron plates from a lamellar armor suit worn by a Byzantine cavalry soldier, identical to armor found at Carthago Spartaria.
A collection of seven Byzantine bronze weights used for tax collection also emerged from the site, making it the third largest such assemblage recovered anywhere on the Iberian Peninsula.
Under Justinian’s law, the church was legally responsible for tax collection, which explains why these weights were stored there.
Military relics and Greek marble confirm a rare Byzantine fort in Spain
Among the religious artifacts, a marble altar table carved from white Parian marble, sourced from Greece and confirmed through petrographic analysis, was recovered in fragments scattered across several rooms.
An ivory cylindrical container used to store consecrated wafers, decorated with a scene of Hercules capturing the Hind of Ceryneia, was also found. Poveda Navarro connects this imagery to a deliberate Christian syncretism promoted under Justinian, merging Hercules symbolism with that of Christ.
Additional liturgical objects include an iron knife for cutting hosts, a pewter spoon, a bronze ring-key for the tabernacle, a ceramic seal bearing the abbreviation for Beata Virgo Maria, and a large pottery dish with six incised crosses.
The church itself covers 84.50 square meters (909.6 square feet), with a horseshoe-shaped apse, a baptismal pool carved into the bedrock, and painted plaster walls. Poveda Navarro notes that Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture deliberately favored small churches, reserving interior space for clergy rather than congregations.
Around 600 AD, Visigoths took control and established a bishop’s seat. A bishop named Sanabilis signed church documents in 610 AD as the representative of Elo. The seat closed around 625 to 630 AD and merged with the diocese of Ilici.
The complex then reverted to a monastery before Arab settlers converted it into an Islamic religious enclave, giving rise to its current name, derived from the Arabic al-munastir.
