Castelo da Lousa

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The Castelo da Lousa is the Alqueva dam sunken ruins of a Roman military homestead in the village of Luz , Circle Mourão , Évora district ( Alentejo ) in Portugal .

Ruins of the Castelo da Lousa above the Guadiana

location

The facility is located on a rock terrace above the left bank of the Rio Guadiana , about 2.5 km north of the village of Luz and 6 km west-northwest of Mourão . The strongly structured hilly landscape consists of slate formations near the river , which are strongly fissured due to erosion. Cuts by streams and erosion channels in the bank landscape meant that the terrace of the Castelo is only accessible from the south and is somewhat hidden from the side away from the river.

Research history

The Castelo da Lousa was first examined between 1963 and 1967 by A. do Paço and J. Bação Leal. Because of the threat of flooding from the dam project, the Madrid department of the German Archaeological Institute carried out a survey of the preserved walls in 1984.

In 2000 a German company carried out a geophysical survey in the vicinity of the Castelo da Lousa .

investment

The core structure of the facility blocks the rock spur at its narrowest, only 18 m wide point. Various outbuildings are grouped around the rectangular building on a lower terrace, the purpose of which is to be found in agriculture. Most of these terraces were artificially reinforced with masonry. The material used consisted of the region's clay slate, which, thanks to its good cleavage properties, could be piled up in such a way that hardly any mortar was needed.

For the construction of the core structure, on the one hand, strongly founded retaining walls were built, on the other hand, part of the rock had to be removed in order to convert the floor plan into reality. The masonry preserved was 6 m high in the northwest corner, measured from the base of the building to the demolition crown. The outer walls of the core building enclosed an area of ​​19.23 × 16.8 m and were just over 2 m thick. The floor plan was based on an axially symmetrical design, which in turn was based on a grid calculated according to Roman feet (29.6 cm).

After entering an anteroom you found yourself in an inner courtyard, in the middle of which a cistern has been preserved. From here one could get into all rooms of the basement, in the outer walls of which there were still some slotted windows, which, according to Wahl, were used more for light and ventilation than as loopholes . A staircase has been preserved on one of these walls, demonstrating the multi-storey nature of such buildings. It was probably mostly two-story buildings, the superstructure of which was made of half-timbering, as shown here by parts of the collapse. The cistern in the inner courtyard of the Castelo da Lousa proves that this building was probably covered with an inward-facing monopitch roof, which offered no possibility of attack from the outside and guaranteed the collection of rainwater inside.

Finds

The dating of the complex is based on four coins found that date from 130-22 BC. Chr., The strong presence of so-called Campana goods ( Campana B ), as well as sigillata - forms that are comparable with the early pieces from the Rhine. Utility ceramics point to the middle of the 1st century BC. The place was settled from 70/60 BC. Until the birth of Christ, which goes hand in hand with the dating of other fortified farms on the Iberian Peninsula.

The finds are in the Museu Regional de Évora.

interpretation

The topography results in the strongly defensive character of the square, which determined the choice of location. Therefore, as originally assumed, it is unlikely to have served as a watch and signal station. The fact that this building complex was located away from larger settlements or traffic routes (the Río Guadiana is not navigable here), as well as the arrangement of the buildings with a defensive core structure and several auxiliary buildings added in a loose construction, suggests the function of an agricultural enterprise had to have a defensive character for various reasons. These systems were only suitable for passive close-up defense against predatory attacks. An interpretation as a watch or signal station, which would only result from the size, is also ruled out because of the dense grouping of these buildings east of Castro Verde. There is also no evidence of the military in the finds, finds of spindle whorls and weaving weights from many “fortelezas” indicate farms that were self-sufficient in this seclusion. However, arable farming is out of the question in this less fertile area, except for personal use, so that the main source of income is likely to have been cattle breeding.

There are types of such well-fortified courtyards in the Mediterranean region above all in the Greek-influenced areas, in North Africa up to the Byzantine-Islamic period and on the Iberian Peninsula again in late antiquity . The region in which these homesteads were located in Lusitania was notorious in the 1st century for the gang mischief that repeatedly forced the Romans to take countermeasures. Varro mentions that the management of many estates in the border area with the Lusitanians is unprofitable, propter latrocinia vicinorum . Strabo depicts the Lusitanians and, above all, the mountain tribes as barbarians that are barely civilized, and depicts them as classic bandits because of their warlike nature and greed for prey. We are also in the 1st century BC. At a time when there were still free parts of the country on the peninsula that did not belong to the Roman Empire.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Norbert Buthmann / Martin Posselt / Benno Zickgraf: Integrated geophysical survey in the Alqueva reservoir project - Rio Guardiana, Alentejo, Portugal. In: M. Doneus / A. Eder-Hinterleitner / W. Neubauer (Ed.): Archaeological Prospection. 4. Internat. Conf. Arch. Prospection Vienna 2001. Vienna 2001, Archaeological-geophysical prospection for monument preservation and research. A selection of references from Posselt & Zickgraf Prospections GbR. Posselt & Zickgraf prospections, archived from the original on July 10, 2007 ; accessed on June 7, 2019 (original website no longer available).
  2. ^ Information according to Jürgen Wahl: Castelo da Lousa. A fortified farmstead in the Caesar-Augustan period. Madrid Communications 26, 1985, pp. 153f.
  3. ↑ Dietwulf Baatz : Defensive living. A fortified Hellenistic aristocratic seat near Ephyra (Northern Greece). In: Antike Welt 1999/2, pp. 151–155.
  4. ↑ Diodorus V 34, 7.
  5. ↑ Varro: de re rustica I 16, 2.
  6. ^ Strabo III 3, 5.

Coordinates: 38 ° 21 '34 "  N , 7 ° 24' 12"  W.