José María Soler García

Who is José María Soler García?

José María Soler García was a Spanish archaeologist, historian, researcher and folklorist. He is one of the persons who most deeply studied Villena 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 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.