Disir
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Below Irun lay Oiasso, the city of the Vascones people mentioned by the classical geographers, with its port, necropolis and baths that have all been unearthed by archaeologists along with traces of temples and theaters that have yet to come to the light. “Some people came to the excavation and teased us saying, ‘Come on, girls, don’t you know the Romans never got this far?’ A man would come by the dig every day and insult us,” recalls Urteaga.
-Why?
-Some people were uncomfortable with our findings because it spoiled the idea they had of their own identity: ‘The Romans never occupied this country, the Vascones resisted, and that’s why we are a peculiar people with a unique language.’ That myth was very deep-rooted. Some people from the cultural and academic world treated us as if we were committing treason.”
Urteaga maintains that Basque culture did not survive in spite of the Romans, but because of them. “Their army was unstoppable,” she says. “They settled in the regions that interested them and the local leaders probably integrated and took advantage of improved political position, business opportunities and higher standards of living. Thanks to the Romans, they received an accelerated course in modernization. Within a couple of centuries, they had adopted the Latin script, the most advanced techniques of construction and agriculture, urban planning, art, hygiene and everything that other civilizations had developed during thousands of years. Other cultures missed out on this modernization and disappeared.”
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english.elpais.com
This is not something that I hear about very often.
-Why?
-Some people were uncomfortable with our findings because it spoiled the idea they had of their own identity: ‘The Romans never occupied this country, the Vascones resisted, and that’s why we are a peculiar people with a unique language.’ That myth was very deep-rooted. Some people from the cultural and academic world treated us as if we were committing treason.”
Urteaga maintains that Basque culture did not survive in spite of the Romans, but because of them. “Their army was unstoppable,” she says. “They settled in the regions that interested them and the local leaders probably integrated and took advantage of improved political position, business opportunities and higher standards of living. Thanks to the Romans, they received an accelerated course in modernization. Within a couple of centuries, they had adopted the Latin script, the most advanced techniques of construction and agriculture, urban planning, art, hygiene and everything that other civilizations had developed during thousands of years. Other cultures missed out on this modernization and disappeared.”
The archeologist who discovered Roman ruins in the land of the Basques
Ever since she first explored an astounding mining tunnel in the early 1980s, Mertxe Urteaga has been demonstrating the importance of Roman colonization in the Basque Country, undoing the long-held myth that the small mountainous region resisted the invaders
english.elpais.com
This is not something that I hear about very often.
