Mértola: 45 years of Castle, Archeology and… dreams

Abstract

Cláudio Torres published in 1979 the first desideratum of what came later to be known as the project "Mértola Vila Museu" (TORRES, 1979), long before the Conventions of Valletta and Faro. Over the last four decades, some of the proposals that seemed like dreams at the time came true, but others remained unattainable, joining new utopias that, in the meantime, appeared on the horizon. The project has always been flexible enough to resist and to reinvent itself, facing one of the most difficult challenges: continuity. The safeguarding of heritage, its importance to the community, and the growing urgency to idealize and persist in the paths of research and dissemination are the pillars that sustain the dream "that commands life".