Altamira Palace

The historic centre of Elche holds more layers of history than most Spanish cities are given credit for. The city is known internationally for two things: the Misteri d'Elx (the medieval liturgical drama performed each August, one of the few medieval mystery plays still performed in its original form, and a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation) and its date palm grove, the Palmeral d'Elx, the largest palm grove in Europe outside North Africa, itself a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Palacio de Altamira — now the seat of MAHE, the Museu Arqueològic i d'Història d'Elx — holds the third great element of Elche's identity: the Lady of Elche.

The Lady of Elche (Dama de Elche in Spanish, Dama d'Elx in Valencian) is a limestone bust discovered in 1897 at La Alcudia, an Iberian-Roman site 2km southeast of modern Elche. The bust — probably 4th century BC, most likely representing a high-status Iberian woman in elaborate jewellery and a characteristic headdress with circular disc-shaped ornaments (rodetes) at each side of the face — is the finest surviving example of Iberian figural sculpture and one of the most iconic archaeological objects on the Iberian Peninsula. Its discovery in 1897 immediately attracted international attention; within weeks of its discovery it was purchased for the Louvre, where it remained until 1941, when Francisco Franco's government negotiated its return to Spain as part of a wartime diplomatic arrangement with the Vichy French government. The Lady of Elche now resides in the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid.

MAHE, housed in the Palacio de Altamira in Elche's historic centre, holds the museum-quality replica of the Lady alongside the full archaeological context of La Alcudia and the Iberian-Roman history of Elche itself. For a visitor trying to understand what the Lady of Elche is, where she came from, and what the Iberian culture she represents was like, Elche — not the Madrid museum — is the essential place to be. The excavations at La Alcudia, conducted since the late 19th century, have produced the materials that explain the Lady: the Iberian settlement, the ritual deposits, the Roman Ilici that succeeded it, and the centuries of accretion that placed a magnificent Iberian bust under the ploughshare of a peasant in 1897.

The Palacio de Altamira itself is a late medieval and Renaissance fortified palace, associated with the Counts of Altamira and the seat of noble power in the Christian city that James I of Aragon established when he took Elche in 1265. The building's adaptation as a museum has preserved its medieval architectural structure — the courtyard, the vaulted spaces, the tower — while distributing the archaeological collections through the adapted rooms. The palace's own building history is part of what the museum documents: a medieval structure in a city whose Islamic past is represented by the Calahorra Tower nearby and whose Iberian and Roman past lies underground at La Alcudia.

The GYG guided walking tour of Elche's historic centre (t894655) covers both the Palacio de Altamira and the Calahorra Tower in the same circuit. The combination of the two monuments gives a visitor the full span of Elche's surviving built heritage: the 12th-century Almohad tower as the oldest standing monument in the city, and the 14th-century Christian palace that succeeded the Islamic administrative order that the tower anchored. Together they document the before and after of the 13th-century reconquest in concrete architectural terms.

[Calahorra Tower](/castles/spain/calahorra-tower) — the oldest surviving monument in Elche, an Almohad-era tower from the 12th century, the last fragment of the Islamic city walls, and a companion stop on the same GYG walking tour. [Santa Bárbara Castle](/castles/spain/santa-barbara-castle) — the great clifftop fortress above Alicante, 15km to the northeast — extends the Alicante province castle circuit for visitors with a day in the region.