GEOCACHING POINT
GC2BZKK-Castro de São Miguel [Mação]
Classified as MN - National Monument
Decree No 37 801, DG, I Series, No 78, of 2-05-1950 (see Decree)
Order of 24-05-1949 of the Minister of National Education
Opinion of 21-05-1949 of the 2nd Subsection of the 6th Section of the JNE to propose the classification as a NLM
Castro of São Miguel de Amêndoa
(the area covered by the classification has as its centre the top of the hill, where the geodesic mark is located, and extends 80 metres north, east and west and 100 metres south) / Castro de São Miguel de Amêndoa (See File in www.monumentos.gov.pt)
Category / Typology
Archaeology / Fortified Village
Located on a hill belonging to Serra da Ladeira or São Miguel, this Iron Age fortified settlement was the object of Romanization between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, although some of the elements gathered during the investigations carried out on its perimeter seem to point to its use throughout the 6th and 7th centuries AD.
This settlement had a defensive system made up of wall cloths that would envelop the whole quadrangular plant enclosure, although in a discontinuous manner. In some of the stretches, it is still possible to observe the starting areas of the walls, made of granite and masonry, whose maximum thickness reaches about two metres. However, some of the vestiges corresponding to a rectangular plant building connected to the north-western area of the fortification seem to point to the probable existence of a citadel.
It is between the intramural and extramural areas of this settlement that one can observe the presence of about fifty housing structures of predominantly square and rectangular plan, with the particularity of presenting between two and three divisions.
With regard to the mobile collection exhumed during the successive archaeological campaigns carried out at this site, the presence of numerous ceramic fragments should be highlighted, as well as fractions of bronze and iron artefacts, of which the discovery of a fragment belonging to a Visigothic belt buckle should be mentioned.
[AMartins]
(Source: DCPC - Direção Geral Património Cultural
http://www.patrimoniocultural.gov.pt/pt/patrimonio/patrimonio-imovel/pesquisa-do-patrimonio/classificado-ou-em-vias-de-classificacao/geral/view/69771)