Denia and Leon share their Roman and Moorish connections

LEON CITY and Denia, although hundreds of kilometres distant, have two significant cultural links.  

Margarita Torres, Leon’s councillor for Tourism and Culture recently visited Denia to learn more about these links and experience firsthand the town’s cultural offer and tourist infrastructure. 

After visiting the Tourist Office, Torres was accompanied by Josep Gisbert, director of Denia’s Archaeological Museum, on a visit to the Moorish remains at El Forti.

From there they went to the town hall where the Leon councillor was shown the First Century AD inscription to Titus Junius Severus, a Denia-born Roman who was a prefect of the Dalmatae cohort and later tribune of the VII Gemina legion.  This last was of particular interest to Margarita Torres, since the Gemina troops were stationed in Chester (England), although their base was in Leon.

Josep Gisbert also explained that a text by an Arab historian who lived between 1172 and 1248 related how the Holy Grail was taken from Jerusalem to Denia, with the intention of presenting it to King Fernando of Leon in the mid-11th Century.

These first contacts between both town halls will provide the basis for future strategies, said Denia’s mayor Vicent Grimalt. They will serve to divulge local history and heritage while boosting tourism in both localities, he added.