THE POZO MORO RELIEFS (CHINCHILLA, SPAIN): A MEDITERRANEAN HERO BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

Summary At Pozo Moro, archaeologists discovered the oldest series of architectural and sculptural remains currently known in Iberian culture. It is traditionally assumed that they were part of a single ten‐meters‐high tower that was built – and immediately collapsed – in the late sixth century BC, some fifty years before an Iberian necropolis flourished around its ruins. This paper proposes that the site housed not just one, but various monuments, built at different times, that depicted the deeds of a local version of a Mediterranean hero, an ‘Iberian Heracles’ whose saga was to some extent known throughout the Mediterranean and used everywhere to bolster local claims to power.