Torreparedones Archaeological Park
Road A-3125, PK.18
- 607163787.
www.baena.es
museohistorico@ayto-baena.es
Schedule: please, check with turismo@ayto-baena.es or +34 957 671 757
Ticket prices: General admission € 2. / € 1 for groups of more than 10 people, retirees, pensioners and children under 12 years old.
Guided tours: The guided tour must be booked in advance at the tourist information office.
APP. (Play Store – Torreparedones). In the Torreparedones Archaeological Park and in the Historical and Archaeological Museum, there is an application for individual visits.
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PARK:
Thanks to archaeological excavations, we know that at least from the second millennium B.C. to the sixteenth century, the human presence in this settlement was continued, having known its greatest splendor in the Iberian and Roman times, when it achieved the status of a colony or municipality. The visit to Torreparedones is a walk through 4000 years of history, through a city with an unknown name, although the researchers point out that we are in the neighborhood that Plinio mentioned as Ituci Virtus Iulia.
THE PREHISTORIC TOWN.
The first testimonies of the human presence in Torreparedones date back to the Neolithic (late IV millennium BC). Here a small community dedicated to livestock and cereal-type agriculture settled as evidence, the hand mills and flint teeth that were used for harvesting.
THE IBÉRICO OPPIDUM.
Since the s. VI b.c., Torreparedones became an oppidum, that is, a fortified town in height, one of the most prominent in the Cordovan countryside, reaching its maximum extension. The undulating plateau was surrounded by a powerful wall reinforced at regular intervals with towers that project outwards, covering an area of 10.5 h , and it is already feasible to give it the title of city.
THE IBERO-ROMAN SANCTUARY.
Located outside the settlement walls, from the s. III a.n.e to s. II d.n.e, the devotees flocked to the sanctuary distraught by the healing powers associated with the goddess Caelestis Juno Lucina venerated in this place. Identified as the goddess of fertility, most of the votive offerings from Torreparedones correspond to representations of pregnant women imploring “a childbirth without problems.”
THE ROMAN CITY.
The human presence has been attested from the republican period, having detected the typical Campanian ceramics throughout the site. In the time of Augustus, the city acquired a privileged legal status as evidenced by some inscriptions that mention positions of the municipal administration (aediles, duoviri …).
It is very likely that the city is none other than the immune colony Ituci Virtus Iulia that Pliny the Elder mentions in the ConventusAstigitanus. Throughout the entire id.ne century, a remarkable urban development was carried out of which we began to know some elements such as the forum in which two construction phases are noticed, the second corresponding to a reform dating from the time of Tiberius, which entailed the “marmorization” of the forensic plaza and part of the buildings located around it, the temple, the porticoes and the basilica.
The most significant thing is the paving of the square and its monumental inscription with literaeaureae that recalls the name of the evergeta responsible for the work: Marco Junio Marcelo. The macellum or market of the city and some hot springs have also been excavated.
THE ORIENTAL DOOR.
One of the access points to the city through a wall built around 600 BC, although it was in Roman times when the original wall was sectioned in order to replace the existing gate with a larger one, flanked on both sides. sides by two large towers for defense. It has two sidewalks for pedestrians and a double door system that would make any attempted assault difficult.
THE ROMAN MARKET.
In the S. I d.n.e and located next to the forum and facing the maximum décumano, the public market (macellum) was built, one of the few examples of this type of buildings that are known in the Iberian Peninsula. Food products were sold there, especially beef and fish.
FORUM.
The public place of the Roman city was occupied by the forum, the window where the assembly of the people met. Over time converted into a political center, it attracted other civil, administrative, religious and economic buildings such as the market or macellum. This square, square in shape, occupied 528 m2 with columnar porticoes from North to South and stands out for an inscription – the second known in situ in Hispania – with the name of the local character who paid for the paving of the square with stone slabs. To the W is the Temple, to the E. the Basilica and in the NW corner the Curia.
THE TEMPLE.
With the model of the templa rostrata endowed with a platform or tribune destined to speakers, and which have a clear functionality of a sacred and political nature.
The plant was rectangular, with dimensions of 15 meters long by 9.40 meters wide. Inside this plant it has been possible to distinguish the structure of the cella, also rectangular. Access would be by two lateral staircases documented on both sides of the forum square. Although it is very devastated, it can be said that it would be a periptero sine postico temple, with a tetrastyl façade, probably systila with shafts 3 feet in diameter. The most characteristic model is the temple dedicated to DivusIulius, in the middle of the Roman Forum, in the place where, supposedly, his body was cremated, personally financed by Augustus himself, who would inaugurate it in August 29 a.d.n.e.
THE CIVIL BASILICA.
In this building important commercial operations were carried out but, above all, judicial action prevailed. It also served as a meeting place for citizens to discuss various issues, protected from inclement weather. It is rectangular in shape with an area of about 350 m2 arranged with the longest side in a north-south direction, so that it closed the square on the eastern side, being right in front of the temple. The paving, possibly marble, has not been preserved but if the 20 pillars that supported the 20 columns of the perstasis (8 x 4) that surrounded the great central nave had at least three access doors from the forum square, one wider central and two other sides. It had, as is usual in this type of construction, two silvers high, the first with an Ionic order and the second with Corinthian capitals.THE MEDIEVAL VILLAGE.
After the splendor of the high imperial Roman era, the city gradually lost importance during the late ancient and Visigothic periods. The Arab presence is verified from the caliphate to the 12th century as eviction of ceramic and numismatic material and through some wall structures. The documents of the time call the place as Castro el Viejo.LA ALDEA MEDIEVAL.
THE CASTLE.
Watchtower of the Cordovan countryside, the settlement of Torreparedones was reduced in the late Middle Ages to a fortress of Christian construction conceived for its strategic position on the Castilian-Nasrid border. It is a Christian work from the late SXIII or early S XIV. The documents of the time mention it with the name of Castro el Viejo and we know that it belonged to King Alfonso X who donated it to Fernán Alonso de Lastres in compensation for the military services rendered during the conquest, thus maintaining the strategic role that the place had had for centuries. After a short period of time in stately power, it passed into the hands of the Córdoba city council, an institution in charge of appointing its wardens. Its depopulation became a reality at the end of the 16th century when it became the property of the city of Córdoba. Its keep rises to 580 meters above sea level, becoming the highest area in the Countryside. From there you can see 30 towns.
