Castle Velho de Freixo de Numão
The Copper Age Castelo Velho de Freixo de Numão (Old Castle of Freixo in Numão) is located near Vila Nova de Foz Côa , or Freixo de Numão on a mountain spur above the "Rio do Vale de Vila" in the Guarda district in Portugal .
Castelo Velho is located in the UNESCO as a world heritage site recognized Vale do Côa , in the rock carvings , archaeological accumulate monuments and their excavations.
Except in the northeast, where the mountain spur merges into a ridge, the place is protected by steep slopes. The attachment consists of two wall rings . The visible, largely restored walls come from the inner ring. Between 1989 and 1993, five excavation campaigns took place in the area just discovered, on the basis of which three different phases could be distinguished.
The phases
- The oldest occupancy of the place was shown in various places, inside, under or immediately outside of today's semicircular wall through ash-containing sediments that contained finds from the Copper Age.
- The second phase is defined by the construction of the oldest, the inner wall, made of local slate using the two-shell technique. The fortification consisted of two more or less concentric, elliptical wall rings, the inner half of which was excavated, while the outer one was only explored through four approximately 2.5 m wide probes, but not assigned a time. The inner wall is between 1.2 and 2.5 m wide and in places up to a height of 80 cm. Three narrow gates were discovered in the semi-oval. With a symmetrical continuation of the construction plan, that would be six for the entire system. A more recent construction phase is shown by three short radial walls. Two go out from the wall and one go in. In the middle of the north side there is a single bastion-like porch. In the center of the settlement is a roughly round, massive stone building nine meters in diameter, some of which has been preserved up to a height of 80 cm. It is interpreted as the base of a tower. On its north side you can see the approximately 1.50 m wide entrance.
- The third, Bronze Age phase, from which some in-situ findings are available, is primarily visible through evidence:
- A: Two of the three gates have been locked while the third is being widened.
- B: Small porches with different functions are leaned against the central tower and the inner wall.
- C: Almost all structures with the exception of the central building and the walls are gradually being abandoned. The phase ended with the abandonment of the square around 1300 BC. Chr.
Dating
According to the, however, controversial calibrated C14 data, the place was during the Copper Age in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. First settled. According to the C14 data, the third phase began at the transition from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BC. BC and reached until the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. The complex seems to have been permanently inhabited during phases 2 and 3. The pottery of the last phase shows contacts with the interior of the Iberian Peninsula . Bell beakers that could be dated very early were found in the Castelo Velho .
determination
The purpose of the place is unclear, but there is evidence that Castelo Velho was a place of worship. This thesis of the researchers from Porto was controversial for a long time, but it is becoming more and more important.
literature
- ACN de Valera: Mobilidade estratégica e prolongamento simbólico: problemáticas do abandono no povoamento calcolítico do Ocidente peninsular , (Era) Arqueologia Lisbon 2003
- S. de O. Jorge: Absolute chronology of Castelo Velho de Freixo de Numão (Northern Portugal): data and problems , Journal of Iberian Archeology LocalPorto Porto 2002.
Web links
Coordinates: 41 ° 4 ′ 20.6 " N , 7 ° 11 ′ 30.5" W.