La Sella dig ends after wall collapse destroys silo; team blames ministry delay

The excavation in the priest’s garden at La Sella has ended amid controversy after the archaeological team Regirarocs reported that a wall collapsed, which it attributes to a delay by the ministry in protecting the site. The dig aimed to locate remains of the church of Sant Martí, documented in the 16th century but later lost from records.

Earlier campaigns had already shown that the structures uncovered beneath the garden were not those of Sant Martí. Nonetheless, a third, more extensive excavation was carried out in October to determine the nature, function and dating of the remains. The team found what appears to be an agricultural building — a kind of borda or threshing-floor building, with a ground level for livestock and an upper level used for storage, not habitation.

In addition to completing the peripheral feeding trough that clarified the building’s function (previously interpreted as a continuous bench associated with a supposed chapel), the team uncovered two likely older silos. During excavation of these features a wall was left unsupported. Regirarocs says it warned that the site needed protection for the winter, but protective measures were only taken this week. By then one wall had collapsed onto a silo, destroying that structure and the information it could have provided, according to archaeologist Gerard Remolins.

The intervention concluded on Wednesday: the site was covered with geotextile and the remaining silo was backfilled with sandbags. Remolins says the damage was already done and blames a lack of timely response from the ministry. He warned of a perceived hierarchy in heritage conservation that prioritises well-studied Romanesque churches while letting vernacular architecture — the less-studied local buildings — receive less attention and protection.

Some finds that initially suggested a church proved to be misleading. A circular stone interpreted as an unfinished baptismal font, a slab with a central hole thought to be for a bell rope, and the use of a soft local stone more typical of decorative use than structural work all turned out to be false leads. Remolins notes that the soft stone could have been reused from a nearby chapel, rather than indicating the presence of the church on this exact spot.

He also points to an earlier confusion in the project’s briefing: the team was told that human remains had been documented in the 1970s and were now missing, which raised the possibility of finding a church cemetery. That information appears to have been mixed up with the priest’s garden located near Sant Joan de Caselles, not the La Sella site. Remolins suggests that future investigations should be based on more solid evidence than toponymy alone.