The “Stories The River Brings Us” Exhibition, showcasing ancient remains linked to the Arade river, is now open at Portimão Museum, until November 3rd.
The exhibition reveals that since antiquity, the Arade river was an access point to the interior of the country, due to the natural shelter conditions of its estuary, which led to Portimão, probably 'Portus Hanibalis', 'Portus Magnus' or ' Cilpis', growing in close connection with the river, forming part of an extensive network of commercial and cultural exchanges.
According to the CCDR Algarve Culture Unit, it explains that the progressive silting of the Arade has affected its navigation, making it necessary to have a regular dredging plan, the sediments of which are subsequently deposited on the beaches, "in which countless traces of the past were discovered, testimonies of the occupation of this region from prehistory to the present day".
These testimonies were collected by members of the IPSIIS Project Association, with whom the Portimão Museum has been developing an innovative research project since 2014, entitled DETDA - Prospecting with metal detectors in the dredged deposits of the Arade River and the Alvor Ria, highlighting the involvement and participation of civil society in this process. Created in 2001, under the now extinct CNANS (National Center for Nautical and Underwater Archeology), IPSIIS was established as an association in 2014.
As part of the celebrations of Portimão's Centenary (1924-2024), this archeology exhibition is said to "allow us to view the two watercourses as repositories of heritage and the valorization of the recovered remains as material reflections of the populations that inhabited their banks".
