Hermilio Alcalde Del Rio Street

Hermilio Alcalde del Rio was an historian who was born in Villamediana (Palencia) the 13^th January of 1866, and he died in Torrelavega the 2^nd June of 1947. He moved to Torrelavega with his widow mother shortly after birth, where he did his Bachiller studies at Saint José’s School. In 1885 he enroled at the Special School of Paint, Sculpture, Engraving and Architecture, and he obtained the certificate in 1891. The next year he founded in Torrelavega the School of Arts and Trades intended to the preparation of the child of the artisians workers which directed until his last days. The arrival of Cartailhac y Breuil to study Altamira’s Cave at the beggining of the age interested him for his later investigation of this cave. In 1902 he went with Augusto Gonzáles de Linares to visit Altamira. He managed to reproduce the collection of paintings of the cave. He did then the first clasification of the Paleolithic’s paintings by the techniques. In 1903 too que discovered in the zone of Puente Viesgo a cave with a lot of quantity of stratigraphic materials that helped him to establish the chronological succession of the rock formations and the life cycle of the Earth, the cave of El Castillo, which got him international fame. To this cave, it follows Santián in 1905: La Clotilde, in colaboration with Breuil, in 1906: the engravings of El Pendro and La Meaza en 1907, el Pindal, Mazaculos, Balmoria and La Loja in 1908; and Las Aguas in 1909. In 1906 and 1909 he signed two contracts with the prince of Mónaco. In 1906; too, he realised his very first book, Las pinturas y grabados de las cavernas prehistóricas de la provincia de Santander. Then he realised too Les cavernes de la region cantabrique y La caverna de la Pasiega. He wasn’t only a spelunker, he also was an historian. In 1906 he did diggings in Peña Manil (Labra) and, later, he discovered a roman altar in Pico Dobra of Torrelavega and some objets of the first times of the cristianism in the Peninsula. He was, too, one of the first in question the figures of the Levantin art as paleolithics. During the years 1920 and 1922 he was mayor of Torrelavega. He wrote a book called Escenas cántabras (1914) and a second one, with the same title but in 1928. When he was 81 years old, he died in Torrelavega. Is one of the most importants archaeologists of Cantabria and, nevertheless, he’ll only be remember because of his archaeological heritage. At the Centre of Investigation and the Museum of Altamira of Santillana del Mar there are 21 original drawings made by him, where he represented Altamira’s polychrome, that were donated to the museum by his daughters.

For more information about this character: Encyclopedia of Cantabria

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