Castro de Romariz

Romariz

GPS - N 40º56'55,92 W 8º27'40,60

The “Castro de Romariz” (Hillfort of Romariz), Property of Public Interest, is located in Mount Crasto in the municipality of Santa Maria da Feira. It´s a fortified village with human occupation from the last phase of the End Bronze Age (900-700 b.C.) and it goes till the 1st century a.C.

This place was discovered in 1843 but it only held several excavations in the forties of the twentieth century by the initiative of the priest Manuel Fernandes dos Santos and with the City Council's sponsorship, which revealed a vast area of the village.

From 1980 a new period of archaeological interventions provided the study of the origins and evolution of the hillforts habitat and the identification of several phases of proto-historical and roman occupation.

Surrounded by an imposing defensive wall, the urban texture presents several typical hillfort houses, delimited by small streets with irregular proto-urban planning, revealing an evolution of hillforts' habitat considering the innovations of the roman domestic architecture, such as the roman domus, with a central yard, where it was discovered in front of the main entrance a framed, granitic table, with a small pillar base, just like the cartibulum from Rome.

The collection is made of several species of pottery, glass, metals, coins and epigraphs, and it is extremely significant an expressive set of native, Punic, Greek and Roman pottery and two coin treasures which indicates the native ergology, the regional and long distance exchanges, demonstrating the richness of the chronological and cultural image of the village and it allows to recognize its importance in the perspective of the hillforts' culture in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. “Castro de Romariz” is the most expressive hillfort of the region of “Entre Douro e Vouga” and it is one of the main historical and touristic places of the Municipality.

Contacts:

Tel: +351 256 331 070
Fax: +351 256 365 335
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Visits require appointment.