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.

Publications

Soler has written several books on his archaeological works, some others on historical or folkloric research and even one dictionary on Villena's Spanish dialect. Moreover, he has written a hugh quantity of articles in newspapers and magazines, and he has also given many lectures all over Spain. A list of their published books follows:
In addition, Villena's City Hall gave his name to one street in the old part of the city in 1979.