Por Redacción TV Yumurí 
As a complex and extremely cautious process, Esteban Grau, vice president of the Cuban Speleological Society, assessed today the extraction of three of the projectiles that remained in the bay of this city as evidence of the attacks on the Peñas Altas Battery during the War Hispanic-Cuban-American in 1898.
The studies carried out since the previous year determined the existence of at least five of the explosives corresponding to the first battle that took place in Matanzas on April 27, 1898, an example of the confrontation between North American ships and the colonial defense, commented Odlanyer Hernández de Lara. PhD candidate in Archeology from Syracuse University in New York.
Hernández de Lara added that after recovering the materials submerged 125 years ago in the sea, they will begin a preventive conservation process, to avoid an increase in corrosion and enable their subsequent exhibition in museums.
During the underwater actions, Grau pointed out, new techniques such as photogrammetry were used to reconstruct and create virtual models of the marine space that allow detailed documentation of the place where each element was found, as well as the application of GPS in conjunction with other digital devices. to pinpoint the exact moment and time of discovery.
Judith Rodríguez Reyes, leader of the Guamacaro speleological group, explained that the work was organized in two teams; divers for marine activities and land support for the assembly of ropes that would allow the extraction of projectiles, as well as advice from specialists in the field of explosives from the Ministry of the Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces.
The 41st Squadron-Batería de Peñas Altas Archaeological Project, in its third stage of work, includes the excavation of new areas that allow locating architectural elements to define the real dimensions of the building that belonged to the colonial defense and was later occupied by the forces of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
We are immersed in the location of other areas of interest, among them those destined for torture; We found some walls that still preserve the yellow paint characteristic of the rural guard barracks, bullets, casings, ceramics, and in particular, we examined some bone elements of species that we have not documented until now and that we have just begun to process, highlighted Hernández de Lara.
Exposing the foundations of a building that was a Spanish location, and where many of the local martyrs were tortured and murdered, represents a commitment to rescue history and consolidate the sense of belonging, of nation and of the so-called Matanzas sity, considered Ercilio Vento Canosa, Historian of the City. (ALH)
