The military camp (castra) will be installed next to the Roman funerary tower of Sant Josep, a key monument of the Roman Hispania, on a plot disinterestedly provided by the developer group of the project Allonbay Villageand Residencial Aqua.
On Saturday, April 21, at 10 and 11 am, there will be special guided tours dedicated to the news of the Bou Ferrer shipwreck and the Roman city of Villajoyosa in Vilamuseu; at 12:30 the famous communicator of Roman culture Néstor F. Marqués, who will attend this year all Festum Alonis activities, will present in Vilamuseu and sign copies of his new book "A year in ancient Rome", which has become a best-seller.
The public visits to the Tower of Sant Josep and to the castra, guided in Spanish, Valencian and English, will be the same afternoon, from 5 pm to 8 pm. The assistants will be involved in the frenetic activity of a camp during the preparations of the Cantabrian Wars (29-19 BC), which led to the VIIII Hispana legion, the famous "lost legion", to northern Spain. This year there will be an important part dedicated to civil life, with special attention to women and children's games. We will also have an important novelty, the participation of Beate Scheider, one of the best connoisseurs of ancient looms, who will show live with her own loom how fabrics were made.
Festum Alonis is the first major event of the annual calendar of the Hispania Romana Cultural Association, attended by re-enactors from all over Spain. In FESTVM ALONIS new modules that will be developed in later events throughout Spain are premiered. The first of them will be on Saturday 6.30 pm: in the camp, a parent will decide before the public if he picks up his newborn child from the ground to recognize and give him his name, in the ceremony called "sublatus". The curious thing is that the couple that will represent this scene were married following the ancient Roman ritual during Festum Alonis IV in 2015. Three years later they are parents of a child who will now receive the Roman equivalent of a baptism, so re-enactment and reality connect.
On Sunday morning from 11 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., the opposite will be recreated for the public: death in Rome. Near the mouth of the Torres River will take place the representation of the rites of the deceased and then there will be a funeral procession with ancient live music along the gardens of the beach to the Torre de Sant Josep.
Downloadable programne in Spanish, Valencian and English: http://www.vilamuseu.es/festumalonis-en .