José María Soler García was a Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 archaeologist, historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, researcher

Researcher

A researcher is somebody who performs research, the search for knowledge or in general any systematic investigation to establish facts. Researchers can work in academic, industrial, government, or private institutions.-Examples of research institutions:...

 and folklorist. He is one of the persons who most deeply studied Villena

Villena

Villena is a city in Spain, in the Valencian Community. It is located at the northwest part of Alicante, and borders to the west with Castilla-La Mancha and Murcia, to the north with the province of Valencia and to the east and south with the province of Alicante. It is the capital of the comarca...

 and its surrounding area, since the vast majority of his research was focused on what concerned his hometown.

In 1957 he founded Villena's Archaeological Museum with the findings he had collected from the 1920s on. In 1963, after he found the Treasure of the Cabezo Redondo in March and the Treasure of Villena

Treasure of Villena

The Treasure of Villena is one of the greatest hoard finds of gold of the European Bronze Age. It comprises 59 objects made of gold, silver, iron and amber with a total weight of almost 10 kilos, 9 of them of 23.5 carat gold...

 in December, the museum's name was officially changed to Archaeological Museum "José María Soler". The José María Soler Foundation, constituted after his death, calls every year Research Awards in order to keep alive Soler's legacy.

Publications

Soler has written several books on his archaeological works, some others on historical or folkloric research and even one dictionary on Villena's Spanish dialect. Moreover, he has written a hugh quantity of articles in newspapers and magazines, and he has also given many lectures all over Spain. A list of their published book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s follows:

• Archaeology
  • 1956. El yacimiento musteriense de "La Cueva del Cochino" (Villena-Alicante)
  • 1965. El tesoro de Villena
  • 1969. El oro de los tesoros de Villena
  • 1981. El Eneolítico en Villena
  • 1987. Excavaciones arqueológicas en el Cabezo Redondo (Villena, Alicante)
  • 1991. La Cueva del Lagrimal
  • 1993. Guía de los yacimientos y del Museo de Villena
• History
  • 1948. Crónica de las Fiestas de septiembre de 1948
  • 1969. La Relación de Villena de 1575
  • 1976. Villena: Prehistoria - Historia - Monumentos
  • 1981-1988. Historia de Villena
  • 1993. La colección numismática de José Mª Soler
  • 2006. Historia de Villena: desde la Prehistoria hasta el siglo XVIII (re-ed. 2009)
• Linguistics
  • 1993. Dicionario villenero (reed. 2005)
• Music and folklore
  • 1979. El Polifonista villenense Ambrosio Cotes
  • 1986. Cancionero popular de Villena (re-ed. 2005)
• Other themes
  • 1958. Bibliografía de Villena y su Partido Judicial
  • 1976. I Congreso Nacional de Fiestas de Moros y Cristianos
  • 1984. Soldadescas, Comparsas y Toros

Awards

• Musicology
  Musicology
  Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
  
   Award of CSIC
  CSIC
  The Spanish National Research Council is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe...
  
  , on the Cancionero popular de Villena (1949)
• Golden Medal of Villena (1973)
• Bronze Medal in Fine Arts (1980)
• Montaigne Award of Hamburg
  Hamburg
  -History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
  
  's FvS Foundation (1981)
• Doctor honoris causa by Universidad de Alicante (1985)
• Gold Medal of the Province of Alicante (1991)

In addition, Villena's City Hall gave his name to one street in the old part of the city in 1979.

External links

• José María Soler Foundation
• Archaeological Museum José María Soler