We have lost the greatest current supporter of El Argar, Mr. Oswaldo Arteaga Matute, who died on May 13, 2026 at the age of 83 and was cremated in Porcuna (Jaén) on Friday, May 15, 2026. I met him in 1978 in Fuente Alamo (Cuevas del Almanzora) when the first year of geography and history at the university college of Almeria we went to the site accompanied by the teachers Mrs. Catalina Martinez Padilla and Mr. Agustin Diaz Toledo, professor of ancient history, fellow student of Oswaldo and one of his best friends during his time as a student in Granada.
Don Oswaldo, through the German Archaeological Institute, carried out in 1991 an excavation in El Argar, with Mr. Hermanfrid Schubart, putting in value our heritage and whose result was the discovery of a medieval Islamic house that revealed a second human occupation in El Argar unknown until then. This house was named “Doña Anna-María Roos”, wife, friend, companion and beacon of Don Oswaldo.
Photos in the excavations of El Argar. Photographs courtesy of José Valero Ridao.
In the first meetings we had with Oswaldo and Anna-María, we were very excited that a couple of great archaeological importance would share with some enthusiastic Antarctic people who wanted to make known the Argaric culture and the prehistoric sites of Antas. These first contacts were promoted by our chronicler Mr. Gabriel Martínez Guerrero, who knew Oswaldo from the excavations in Fuente Alamo and El Argar. The mayor, Mr. Pedro Ridao Zamora, and the councilman of culture, Mr. Pedro Luis Rodríguez García, together with the aforementioned chronicler, had gone to Seville several times to explain to them the ideas about El Argar. Later, they came to Antas and asked us about the possibilities of holding an International Symposium in El Argar, to which we agreed with great enthusiasm. Don Oswaldo, Doña Anna María and Don Gabriel were in charge of its organization, helped by the members of the Argaric Council, Pedro Ridao, Pedro Rodríguez García, Luis Cano, Javier Irigaray, Antonio García, Ignacio Martín, Juan Grima, Julián Pérez and Luis Artero.
Since they did not know us at the beginning of the meetings, they called us “the teacher”, in reference to Don Gabriel, with whom after so many contacts they became close friends, and “his boys”. The Symposium, scheduled for December 4-8, 2021, was not held due to the pandemic; it was finally held from April 27-29, 2022. The Symposium was attended by 24 professors from Spain, Portugal and Germany. Don Oswaldo was its director and, more recently, the editor of the Proceedings published by the City Council of Antas and edited by the publishing house Arráez, owned by Juan Grima Cervantes.
The last time Oswaldo was in Antas was in June 2025. He was there for a full week. He witnessed each of the days of the I International Congress of Young Researchers in Prehistory and Archaeology, of which he was the intellectual godfather, although he was affected by the death of his wife, Anna-Maria Roos, who died on February 9 of that same year in Seville at the age of 67. The Congress closed with his appointment as Adopted Son of Antas.
A few days later, on June 23, he was in the row of honor at the inauguration of the Interpretation Center of the Argaric Culture (CICA). There he was when the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Mr. Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, together with some of his councilors and the president of the Diputación de Almería, entered the CICA and welcomed them.
At the moment, the Antas Town Council is drafting the bases for the competition of projects to excavate in the site of El Argar; he was the honorary president of this Commission.
The last time I spoke with him was on April 19, 2026, Sunday, which I usually did every 20-25 days and, among other things, I told him that we were continuing to disseminate the Argaric culture. Specifically, I told him that on April 17, invited by the Department of Culture of the City of Garrucha, Antonio Luis Rodriguez, director of CICA, and Luis Artero, chronicler of Antas, gave a lecture. He asked me how the excavations in El Argar were going, and that if it took a long time to decide who would excavate, he would take six workers from Antas and start excavating: “Antonio Luis in El Argar upstairs and me downstairs, in the Argaric houses, controlling and directing”. He insisted that he had to retire and hang up his boots in El Argar, in Antas. However, this idea was unlikely: Antonio Luis is not an archaeologist, there are no permits, nor is it known which team will carry out the excavation.
He wanted to open the house called “Doña Anna-María” that he excavated in 1991 in honor of his wife and his dear friend, “the teacher”, Mr. Gabriel Martínez Guerrero, since this idea was the desire of both of them and, for them, the greatest visualization that could be done in El Argar. Oswaldo and “the master” can rest assured that we have the commitment of the mayor and the councilman of Heritage that this will be done.
Some of his phrases will remain in the collective imagination of the people of Antas: “El Argar is the site that has given name to the Argaric culture”, “El Argar is in Antas”, “they can appropriate the name, but not the hill, because they can not take it away”, “Antas has oil and that oil is El Argar, which must be removed to give it visibility”. “The gentleman of El Argar, as defined by Mayor Pedro Ridao Zamora, has left to join Ana-Maria, his beloved wife, and his great friend Don Gabriel. Wherever they are, they will continue to guide us and the people of Antas will defend and keep his legacy alive”. May he rest in peace.
