Ramon Albero Belda. Councilor of Heritage.
Aiguamans is a word derived from Latin (aqua-ma-nus), with the meaning of: “jug with which water was poured into the hands of those invited to eat in a house. The complement was a palangana or safa which was the container that received the spilled water”.
The stack, or aiguamans, object of study, was found in the year 2004, in the garden of a house on Carrer Sant Jaume, num. 20, de Mariola, when its owner Jorge Belda Llopis carried out renovation works, who contacted the then councilor of Heritage, and they agreed that the City Council will carry out a study of the piece.
The municipal corporation deposited the pile in the Municipal Archaeological Museum of Banyeres “Torre de la Font Bona”, to the expectation of budgetary availability.
In 2007, the director of Museums, Ma Ángeles Calabuig Alcántara communicated the existence of the piece to the new corporation, and he remembered that the restoration and study were pending.
The City Council's governing team, decided to send the pile for restoration and study, Remetent-se to TRP Laboratories, S.L, from Madrid.
This specialized company proceeded with the restoration, noting that the worst state of conservation was located at the surface level, since the speck was reused as a construction element and had abundant remains of cement mortar.
For your interest, we transcribe part of the description and study carried out by this company:
“The vessel is cut from a single block of very fine-grained, slightly yellowish limestone.
The measurements of the battery 29,50 centimeters in diameter and 14,50 centimeters high.
Tea shaped like a flattened and inverted bell, with the mouth up, decorated with a band that runs below the lip, formed by two superimposed half reeds of different diameters, which generate a protruding angle in the union of both.
Below the moldings there is a wide decorative strip, constituted by a geometric motif that is divided into two areas marked by a central line, which almost coincides with the maximum diameter of the piece, forming two distinct borders, with a similar decoration, but different: the upper part is made up of two lines of half-circles lowered almost concentrically, with triangular section. The triangular spaces that form between groups of semicircles are filled with a vertical wedge, the lower vertex of which coincides with the point of union of each group of semicircles.
The lower section of the receptacle has a series of concave semicircles superimposed on as many convex semicircles, of smaller size, and joining the ends of the opposite semicircles are elongated wedges, of triangular section. The motif thus created has the form of “cypriot bullion” elongated. Below the convex lines, there is another band of depressed concave semicircles creating elongated ovals, between which inverted vertical wedges are inserted, similar to those of the first decorative area, but more restrained.
Finally, the lower area of the pile is composed of a bull (bossell, motlura) that surrounds it all, generating a slightly higher circular surface at the central point, point that at the time had some decorative finish that was removed, when the battery was confiscated, to be able to place it better on a flat surface.
Likewise, it preserves the remains of a rectangular appendix, made in the same limestone block in which it was cut, that was withdrawn to be able to extract it from the wall to which it was attached.
In the same area it preserves two perforations, a loop that goes through the glass of the battery, appearing inside it and another smaller one that does not cross it, in the vertical of previously quoted, possibly related to a point of attachment or suspension, once the carrying element that the stack originally had was removed.
On one side and on the other of the rest of the support pillar, it preserves remains of red paint in the form of shapeless droplets, possibly coming from the parietal decoration that the sacristy of the church had”.
In the study carried out it is indicated that the pile can be interpreted in three different ways, but all of them related to the ecclesiastical world.
It is ruled out that it was a pile of holy water, beneitare, by the presence of the desaigu, and for the decoration of the pile that predates the Counter-Reformation, when the wells were introduced.
Equally, for the presence of the water rise of exit, It is ruled out that it formed a baptismal font, and also because batting batteries are not usually attached to a bearing element, com in this case.
The third interpretation is that it would be a sacristy aqueduct, almost certainly, of the old parish church of Banyeres, disappeared today, and that was in the location of the current Principal Theatre.
It is also ruled out that it could come from an old hermitage, (that of the Conjurador was next to Carrer Sant Jaume, where the pile was found), because chapels usually do not have this liturgical tool.
For the decorative band of the pile they advert, style that matches the references we have from our old parish church.
The pile had a liturgical utility consisting of the washing of the priest's hands after the Eucharistic ceremonies, to remove eucharistic remains and to wash the body and the purifier. This liturgical element, now in disuse, served to enhance the ornamentation of the sacristies.
The residual water from these marshes had to be poured into blessed land, so the canalization would cross the wall of the old church and pour into the cement that at that time was attached to the church.
On August 1, 2011, fulfilling the commitment made by the corporation of the year 2004, the City Council proceeded to return the battery to its owner, Jorge Belda Llopis signing a commitment document in order to give the City Council the stake in how many samples or exhibitions are scheduled.
The previous heritage councilor Francesc García Martínez also attended the return ceremony, of the corporation 2003-2007 who received the piece.
From the City Council, we consider that the ideal location for this piece is the Archaeological Museum, and this is how it has been expressed to its owner, Mr. Belda Llopis, in order that by assignment, by donation, or by any other formula that is arbitrated, the pile is included in the municipal heritage, for the knowledge and enjoyment of all, since it is one of the few vestiges we have of the old parish church.
