Citânia de Briteiros - Council House - Guimarães | Portugal

Hello everybody :)

I end with this article, the sharing that i started in the previous post, and due to the high number of images i have to share, i chose to divide the visit into two distinct parts, which end up distinguishing and in a certain way characterizing the place visited, having been divided between what i identified as the right side and the left side of this enormous enclosure.
Today we will explore visually and in detail the left side of the enclosure :)
There, we are invited to immerse ourselves in a Celtic archaeological setting, located right at the top of Monte de São Romão, 336 meters above sea level, spread over a total of 24 hectares, although only seven of these revealed themselves to my curiosity, in the old parish of Salvador de Briteiros, Guimarães in Portugal.
Just imagine the scenario, with this strategic elevation, the people living there had visual control over the vast surrounding area and easy access to the river, thus having an abundant source of fish resources.

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This place is like a portal to the Iron Age, where a colossal fort rises with an urban nucleus at the top, still embraced today by the walls that protected this fortified town back then.
The main entrance ends up being similar to many other entrances to forest parks, very common in this country, but in this case, as soon as we passed through the reception where we were given some information as well as a small map of the area, we immediately came across a fascinating scenario that made us guess what would be revealed to us along the way, it was as if we were entering a time machine, with Citânia de Briteiros being one of the most important archaeological sites in the proto-history of our country.
This visit was like opening the pages of an old book, allowing me to glimpse and visualize what remains of the rich Castro culture and urban organization of Northern Portugal.
The ruins tell stories through a complex network of streets, delineating public and private areas with residences in shapes as diverse as circular, rectangular and square structures, with emphasis on the luxurious bathhouses where a famous slab called Pedra Formosa (Formosa Stone) was discovered and a central building , Casa do Conselho (the Council House), where the most important plans were outlined.

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This place gained full life in the castro, reaching its peak between the 2nd and 1st centuries BC. However, with the Roman conquest, decline embraced the place in the 2nd century AD, the town, once vibrant, said goodbye to permanent habitability, persisting only in traces that perhaps survived until the 4th century.
It was only in the 1870s that Francisco Martins Sarmento took the first archaeological steps in exploring this site. In 1910, Citânia de Briteiros received the distinction of National Monument, truly and officially marking its importance.
The evidence buried to date continued to be uncovered through several exploration campaigns that took place between 1930 and 1970 under the leadership of Mário de Vasconcelos Cardoso, leader of the Martins Sarmento Society.
But it was in 1977 that a new chapter in exploration opened, with the first survey using modern scientific archeology techniques and later in 2004 when the Martins Sarmento Society in partnership with the University of Minho launched a new series of new studies and explorations that allowed unravel the past and weave a web of stories that have been waiting for a long time to be told.

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At the epicenter, also known as the acropolis, an extension of approximately 250 by 150 meters is drawn, revealing an intricate network of orthogonal streets that cross this sanctuary, highlighting two main roads that seem to be the vital arteries of this timeless place and through which This visit is well marked on the small map given to us at the entrance.
The interior areas are organized around these streets, forming small blocks-like nuclei, where the division between private and public spaces is obvious. The houses, mostly circular in plan, seem to have welcomed extended families, some of them surrounded by walls and even small terraces with a privileged view. The main buildings, circular and with traces of banks, were the heart of each nucleus, while the rectangular buildings functioned as warehouses, housing tools and food.
In the aforementioned left space of the enclosure, in the highest place and with a wide panoramic view over the River Vale, there is a space that, according to its characteristics and according to archaeologist Francisco Sande Lemos, was reserved and destined for the richest and most influential families.
It is in this same space that you will find the imposing Casa de Coronero, the Casa de Espiral and the noble Casa de Auscus.

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There, in a space that appears to be the main square, where all the religious ceremonies and gatherings would possibly take place, now stands the charming Chapel of São Romão, built with stones that previously made up the Castro buildings around it, in the place where it formerly stood an ancestral hermitage, now faded, remembered only by a cruise.
There, close to the summit, and after a steep slope mitigated by some terraces erased by time, something that captures the attention of any curious adventurer, the grandeur of the Council House.
Imagine an imposing circular structure, approximately 11 meters in diameter, rising majestically at the central point of this ancient place. This was not a mere building but rather the epicenter of decisions, the stage for elders' meetings, where the stories of the people came to life.

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In other times, this structure was more complex, with five distinct rooms, something unique compared to the neighboring houses.
What remained to be visited and recorded was the Museum where there is a vast collection of artefacts recovered during excavations and the famous Bathhouses, which end up being the best preserved testimony.
The impossibility of going down the hill to visit these last remains was due to the fact that we had already reached approximately 1 hour before the enclosure closed to the public, which ended up being unfortunate, but at the same time, it was during this hour, with the sun hiding behind the mountains on the horizon that provided the tone of the photos recorded, which ended up being a positive point :)

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The Citânia de Briteiros is not just a set of ruins, it is a grand spectacle that challenges common perceptions about fortified settlements. In this vast territory, where more than two hundred housing structures were uncovered by Martins Sarmento, imagination is the only limit to understanding the magnitude of this lost past.

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That´s all for today, Hope you like it :)

Photo by @aleister
Camera - Samsung SM-A528B
Camera - Canon EOS 600D
Lens - EFS 18-55mm / 70-300mm
Location - Portugal

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Value your time, because every fraction counts, and the price of anything is the amount of life you trade for it.
May the memories of the travels be eternalized in the photographs, and may the photographs transport us back to the travels ;)