Castro Verde Municipality
Castro Verde () is a town and a municipality of the Alentejo region of Portugal (in the historic district of Beja). The population in 2011 was 7,276, in an area of 569.44 km2. Castro Verde is situated in the Baixo Alentejo subregion, within a territory known locally as the ''Campo Branco'' ( en, White Plains). The municipality can be recognized by the local municipal markers along its borders, that appear within its borders to denote its reference as ''A Window on the Plains''; municipal markers appear as stylized house profiles, with an exaggerated window that allows the visitor to see through into the panorama. History The pre-History of the Baixo Alentejo Subregion dates back to 200,000 B.C. when the territory was crossed by migratory Neanderthal peoples from the north of Europe in the Lower Paleolithic period. Until their extinction, around 28,000 B.C., Neanderthal man hunted and foraged in present-day Portugal. Later, the area was home to several cultures due to the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alentejo
Alentejo ( , ) is a geographical, historical, and cultural region of south–central and southern Portugal. In Portuguese, its name means "beyond () the Tagus river" (''Tejo''). Alentejo includes the regions of Alto Alentejo and Baixo Alentejo. It corresponds to the districts of Beja, Évora, Portalegre, and Alentejo Litoral. Its main cities are Évora, Beja, Sines, Serpa, Estremoz, Elvas, and Portalegre. It has borders with Beira Baixa in the north, with Spain (Andalucia and Extremadura) in the east, Algarve in the south, and the Atlantic Ocean, Ribatejo, and Estremadura in the west. Alentejo is a region known for its traditional polyphonic singing groups, similar to those found in Tuscany, Corsica, and elsewhere. History The comarca of the Alentejo became the Alentejo Province, divided into upper (Alto Alentejo Province) and lower (Baixo Alentejo Province) designations. The modern NUTS statistical region, Alentejo Region, was expropriated from the medieval provi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Castro Culture
Castro culture ( gl, cultura castrexa, pt, cultura castreja, ast, cultura castriega, es, cultura castreña, meaning "culture of the hillforts") is the archaeological term for the material culture of the northwestern regions of the Iberian Peninsula (present-day northern Portugal together with the Spanish regions of Galicia, Asturias, and western León) from the end of the Bronze Age (c. 9th century BC) until it was subsumed by Roman culture (c. 1st century BC). It is the culture associated with the Gallaecians and Astures. The most notable characteristics of this culture are: its walled oppida and hillforts, known locally as ''castros'', from Latin ''castrum'' 'castle', and the scarcity of visible burial practices, in spite of the frequent depositions of prestige items and goods, swords and other metallic riches in rocky outcrops, rivers and other aquatic contexts since the Atlantic Bronze Age. This cultural area extended east to the Cares river and south into the lower Dour ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mértola
Mértola () is a municipality in southeastern Portuguese Alentejo near the Spanish border. In 2011, the population was 7,274, in an area of approximately : it is the sixth-largest municipality in Portugal. Meanwhile, it is the second-lowest population centre by density with approximately 5.62 persons/ (second to the adjacent Alcoutim). The seat of the municipality is the town of Mértola, which has around 2800 inhabitants (2011), located on a hill over the Guadiana River. Its strategic location made it an important fluvial commercial port in Classical Antiquity, through the period of Umayyad conquest of Hispania: Mértola's main church (the Church of Nossa Senhora da Anunciação) was the only medieval mosque to have survived the period in Portugal. In 2017 Mértola started the process to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History Romans Mértola was inhabited at least since the Iron Age at least by Conni and Cynetes settlements, was influenced by the Phoenicians and finally ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aljustrel
Aljustrel () is a town and a municipality in the Portuguese district of Beja. The population in 2011 was 9,257, in an area of 458.47 km2. The present mayor is Nelson Domingos Brito, elected by the Socialist Party. The municipal holiday is June 13. History During the Roman era, Aljustrel was known as ''Metallum Vispascense''. It was occupied by the Moors but in 1235 the town was conquered from them by King D. Sancho II. The first foral (''charter'') was only conceded by King Sancho in 1252. A new foral was issued on 20 September 1510, by King D. Manuel I. On 28 January 2013, the civil parishes of Aljustrel and Rio dos Minhos were aggregated into one local authority called Aljustrel (Decree 11-A/2013, Diário da República, Série 1, 19). Geography Administratively, the municipality is divided into 4 civil parishes: * Aljustrel e Rio de Moinhos * Ervidel * Messejana * São João de Negrilhos International relations Aljustrel is twinned with: * Hem, in the département of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Iberian Pyrite Belt
The Iberian Pyrite Belt is a vast geographical area with particular geological features that stretches along much of the south of the Iberian Peninsula, from Portugal to Spain. It is about 250 km long and 30–50 km wide, running northwest to southeast from Alcácer do Sal (Portugal) to Sevilla (Spain). The mining activity in this region goes back thousands of years. The Iberian Pyrite Belt has had more than 2000 million tons of ore and still has more than 400 million left to exploit. It is the largest concentration of massive sulfides in the world. Formation The Iberian Pyrite Belt was formed 350 million years ago in the Devonian Period, connected to active and hydrothermal volcanism that led to the formation of a volcanic-sedimentary complex. Volcanic activity in the region led to eight giant volcanogenic massive sulfide ore deposits (VMS) associated with polymetallic massive flanks of volcanic cones in the form of pyrite, and also chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia, and was ruled by emperors. From the accession of Caesar Augustus as the first Roman emperor to the military anarchy of the 3rd century, it was a Principate with Italia as the metropole of its provinces and the city of Rome as its sole capital. The Empire was later ruled by multiple emperors who shared control over the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. The city of Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until AD 476 when the imperial insignia were sent to Constantinople following the capture of the Western capital of Ravenna by the Germanic barbarians. The adoption of Christianity as the state church of the Roman Empire in AD 380 and the fall of the Western ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Turdetani
The Turdetani were an ancient pre-Roman people of the Iberian Peninsula, living in the valley of the Guadalquivir (the river that the Turdetani called by two names: ''Kertis'' and ''Rérkēs'' (Ῥέρκης); Romans would call the river by the name ''Baetis''), in what was to become the Roman Province of Hispania Baetica (modern south of Spain). Strabo considers them to have been the successors to the people of Tartessos and to have spoken a language closely related to the Tartessian language. History The Turdetani were in constant contact with their Greek and Carthaginian neighbors. Herodotus describes them as enjoying a civilized rule under a king, Arganthonios, who welcomed Phocaean colonists in the fifth century BC. The Turdetani are said to have possessed a written legal code and to have employed Iberian mercenaries to carry on their wars against Rome. Strabo notes that the Turdetani were the most civilized people in Iberia, with the implication that their ordered, urban ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Phoenicia
Phoenicia () was an ancient thalassocratic civilization originating in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily located in modern Lebanon. The territory of the Phoenician city-states extended and shrank throughout their history, and they possessed several enclaves such as Arwad and Tell Sukas (modern Syria). The core region in which the Phoenician culture developed and thrived stretched from Tripoli and Byblos in northern Lebanon to Mount Carmel in modern Israel. At their height, the Phoenician possessions in the Eastern Mediterranean stretched from the Orontes River mouth to Ashkelon. Beyond its homeland, the Phoenician civilization extended to the Mediterranean from Cyprus to the Iberian Peninsula. The Phoenicians were a Semitic-speaking people of somewhat unknown origin who emerged in the Levant around 3000 BC. The term ''Phoenicia'' is an ancient Greek exonym that most likely described one of their most famous exports, a dye also known as Tyrian purpl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Phoenician Alphabet
The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization. The Phoenician alphabet is also called the Early Linear script (in a Semitic languages, Semitic context, not connected to Minoan writing systems), because it is an early development of the Proto-Sinaitic script, Proto- or Old Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic Writing system, script, into a Writing system#Graphic classification, linear, purely alphabetic script, also marking the transfer from a multi-directional writing system, where a variety of writing directions occurred, to a regulated horizontal, right-to-left script. Its immediate predecessor, the Proto-Canaanite, Old Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic script, used in the final stages of the Late Bronze Age, first in either Egypt or Canaan and then in the Syro-Hittite states, Syro-Hittite kingdoms, is the oldest fully ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paleohispanic Script
The Paleohispanic scripts are the writing systems created in the Iberian peninsula before the Latin alphabet became the main script. Most of them are unusual in that they are semi-syllabic rather than purely alphabetic, despite having supposedly developed, in part, from the Phoenician alphabet. Paleohispanic scripts are known to have been used from the 5th century BC — possibly from the 7th century, in the opinion of some researchers — until the end of the 1st century BC or the beginning of the 1st century CE, and were the main scripts used to write the Paleohispanic languages. Some researchers conclude that their origin may lie solely with the Phoenician alphabet, while others believe the Greek alphabet may also have had a role. Scripts The Paleohispanic scripts are classified into three major groups: southern, northern, and Greco-Iberian, with differences both in the shapes of the glyphs and in their values. Inscriptions in the southern scripts have been found m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tartessian Language
The Tartessian language is the extinct Paleo-Hispanic language of inscriptions in the Southwestern script found in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, mainly in the south of Portugal (Algarve and southern Alentejo), and the southwest of Spain (south of Extremadura and western Andalusia). There are 95 such inscriptions, the longest having 82 readable signs. Around one third of them were found in Early Iron Age necropolises or other Iron Age burial sites associated with rich complex burials. It is usual to date them to the 7th century BC and to consider the southwestern script to be the most ancient Paleo-Hispanic script, with characters most closely resembling specific Phoenician letter forms found in inscriptions dated to ''c.'' 825 BC. Five of the inscriptions occur on ''stelae'' with what has been interpreted as Late Bronze Age carved warrior gear from the Urnfield culture. Name Most researchers use the term ''Tartessian'' to refer to the language as attested on the '' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Southwest Paleohispanic Script
The Southwest Script or Southwestern Script, also known as Tartessian or South Lusitanian, is a Paleohispanic script used to write an unknown language usually identified as Tartessian. Southwest inscriptions have been found mainly in the southwestern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula, mostly in the south of Portugal (Algarve and southern Alentejo), but also in Spain (in southern Extremadura and western Andalucia). Name of the script The name of this script is controversial. The more neutral name is southwestern, because it refers only to the geographic location. Some ethnolinguistic names given to this script include: * Tartessian, considering it to be the script of the language spoken in Tartessos. This is considered unlikely by some as only four of the hundred inscriptions currently known were found in Tartessos' area of influence. * South Lusitanian, because almost all of the southwest inscriptions have been found in the south of Portugal and that area was included in the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |