Cividade de Terroso - History

History

The settlement of Cividade de Terroso was founded during the Bronze Age, between 800 and 900 BC, as a result of the displacement of the people inhabiting the fertile plain of Beiriz and Várzea in Póvoa de Varzim. This data is supported by the discovery of egg-shaped cesspits, excavated in 1981 by Armando Coelho, where he collected fragments of four vases of the earlier period prior to the settlement of the Cividade. As such, it is part of the oldest castro settlements, such as the ones from Santa Luzia or Roriz.

The Castro town maintained trade relations with the civilizations of the Mediterranean, mainly during the Carthaginian dominium in South-eastern Iberian Peninsula.

During the Punic Wars, the Romans had learned of the wealth of the Castro region in gold and tin. Viriathus, who led the Lusitanian troops, hindered northward growth of the Roman Republic at the Douro river, but his murder in 138 BC opened the way for the Roman legions.

Decimus Junius Brutus led a campaign in order to annex the Castro region for Rome, which lead to the complete destruction of the city, just after the death of Viriathus. The deeds of the Roman commander had echoed in Rome, where he passed to be known by the title Callaicus - from Gallaecia, name by which the Romans knew the Castro region, in honour of the people they first encountered - the Callaeci in the area of Calle, around the modern city of Porto.

Strabo wrote, probably describing this period: "until they were stopped by the Romans, who humiliated them and reduced most of their cities to mere villages" (Strabo, III.3.5). Some time later, the Cividade was rebuilt and became heavily Romanized, which started the castro's last urban stage.

The region was incorporated in the Roman Empire and totally pacified during the rule of Caesar Augustus. In the coastal plain, a Roman villa was created, property of a family known as the Euracini. The family was joined by Castro people that started to return to the life in the plain, and Villa Euracini was built. The fishery activity developed with the cetariæ, a Roman method of preserving fish in brine. Thus, from the 1st century onwards, and during the imperial period, the gradual abandonment of Cividade Hill started.

In Memória Paroquiais (Parish Memories) of 1758, the director António Fernandes da Loba with other clergymen from the parish of Terroso, wrote: This parish is all surrounded by farming fields, and in one area, almost in the middle of it, there is a higher hill, that is about a third of the farming fields of this parish and the Ancient say that this was the City of Moors Hill, because it is known as Cividade Hill.

The Lieutenant Veiga Leal in the News of Póvoa de Varzim on May 24 of 1758 wrote: "From the Hill known as Cividade, where one can see several hints of houses, that people say formed a city, to this town arrived cars with bricks from the ruins of that one."

Cividade was later rarely cited by other authors. Nevertheless, in the early 20th century, Rocha Peixoto encouraged his friend António dos Santos Graça in order to subsidize archaeology works.

Excavations began on June 5 of the year 1906 with 25 manual workers and continued until October of the same year, interrupted due to bad weather; they recommenced in May 1907, finishing that same year. The materials discovered were taken to museums in the city of Porto.

After the death of Rocha Peixoto, in 1909, some rocks of the Cividade had been used to pave some streets of Póvoa de Varzim, explicitly Rua Santos Minho Street and Rua das Hortas. Occasionally, groups of scouts of the Portuguese Youth and others in the decades of 1950 and 1960, made diggings in search for archeology pieces. This was seen as archaeological vandalism, but continued even after the Cividade was listed as a property of Public Interest in 1961.

In 1980, the City council of the Póvoa de Varzim invited Armando Coelho to pursue further archaeological works; these took place during the summer of that year. Later, the city hall purchased the acropolis area and constructed the archaeological museum of the Cividade de Terroso in its entrance.

In 2005, groups of Portuguese and Spanish (Galician) archaeologists had started to study the hypothesis of this cividade and six others to be classified as World Heritage sites of UNESCO.