Introduction

^{Recent excavations conducted at Alameus, a bronze-age funerary and religious site on the Western Catalan coast, have uncovered hundreds of ceramics artifacts, including large ritual jugs and bowls, oil lamps, candle holders, goblets, ex-votos, and other objects in exceptionally well-preserved conditions.

The Alameus complex is estimated to date between 1500 b.C. and 1000 b.C., and was a burial and ritual site of the local people known as Alameusians, pre-dating both Phoenician and Greek settlements in the Iberian peninsula. The tombs were unmarked and the altars were built of pressed soil and unburned clay, leaving no recognizable architecture behind, and making it difficult to tell altars and burials apart: all they have left behind are their unique blue ceramics.

Despite the wealth of artifacts discovered at Alameus, we still know very little about the people who created them. Historical sources are scarce, but we know from early Greek chroniclers that the Alameusians were governed by a diad of female priestesses who held both religious and political power and were believed to embody the sacred principles of Fire and Sound.}