In 2004, reform work began in the area near the square housing the city’s historic water deposits and walls. This intervention uncovered a section of the city’s former Roman wall for the first time. Analyses of the material uncovered suggested that it was part of the settlement of Ilerda and dated from the time at which it had received its municipal status (27-16 BCE). This had no doubt been one of the constructed elements seen and described by Julius Cesar: he spoke of a city encircled by walls and with a bridge over the river Sicoris in the famous text in which he explained the battle of Ilerda of 49 BCE.
The section of wall in question is located to the extreme south-west of the central hill and just a few metres from the Porta del Lleó (Lion’s Gate) which closed the citadel. It had been constructed taking advantage of a sudden change in level of the rock on the hill and occupied the same site as the cuirass that had closed off access to the castle of Medina Larida (10th century CE), the Christian walls that closed off the Levitic quarter of the Suda (14th century) and the exterior walls of the citadel (18th – 19th century). This is therefore the best place at which to close off the city and the central hill on the west side.
It was only possible to uncover a six-metre stretch of wall that was conserved at the level of its foundations. The section is 2.5 m wide and contains exposed faces of large irregularly-shaped blocks of uncut sandstone and a filling of masonry made up of small stones and clay. It is also important to stress that it has also been possible to document the remains of a room bordered by small walls made of masonry. These remains, which were built onto the main wall, formed part of one of the first buildings to have been erected inside this, then new, urban reality. Both the levels relating to the construction and the use of the room have been dated to the first half of the 1st century BCE, the period during which the wall was built and the Roman city of d’Ilerda was probably founded.
Los restos aparecidos están protegidos por una gran estructura de hormigón que define un espacio expositivo semiabierto.