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Monsaraz (parish)
Monsaraz is a civil parish (''freguesia'') of the municipality of Reguengos de Monsaraz, on the right margin of the Guadiana River in the Portuguese Alentejo region, near its border with Spain. The population in 2011 was 782, in an area of 88.29 km². History Due to its geographic position, the hilltop of Monsaraz always occupied an important place in the history of the municipality, having been occupied by different peoples since the pre-historical record. It is one of the oldest Portuguese settlements of the southern Portugal, occupied since pre-history, whose examples of permanent habitation include hundreds of megalithic monuments. These include the neolithic remains of: Megalithic Monuments of Herdade de Xerez, Olival da Pega Dolmens, Menhir of Bulhoa, Rocha dos Namorados Menhir and Outeiro Menhir. The hill, on which the main settlement is located, was a pre-historic fortification, or castro, that was the basis of pre-Roman occupation and funerary temples, carved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alqueva Dam
The Alqueva Dam is an arch dam and the centrepiece of the Alqueva Multipurpose Project. It impounds the River Guadiana, on the border of Beja and Évora Districts in south of Portugal. The dam takes its name from the town of Alqueva to its right bank. It creates a large reservoir with an inter-annual regulation capacity from which water may be distributed throughout the region. The dam was completed in 2002 and its reservoir reached the full level, for the first time, in 2010. The power station was commissioned in two stages, stage I in 2004 and stage II in 2013. The Alqueva Dam is the largest dam and artificial lake () in Western Europe. History During the 1950s, the Portuguese Prime Minister, António de Oliveira Salazar, ordered a study of the feasibility of the dam project. The potential benefits of the Alqueva dam were discussed for decades. An initial effort was undertaken after the Carnation Revolution of 1974, but it was abandoned in 1978. The Portuguese government event ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocha Dos Namorados
The Rocha dos Namorados (Lovers’ Rock) is a large upright granite stone located in the parish of Corval, municipality of Reguengos de Monsaraz, in the Évora District of the Alentejo region of Portugal. It is sometimes considered to be a menhir or standing stone but there is no evidence of it having been placed at the site and it seems to be a natural outcrop, although it does have some dimpled, megalithic engravings, as well as a cross, which is believed to have been carved in order to Christianise what was an ancient ritual. It is considered a rare example of the veneration of stones associated with a secular, pagan fertility rite that has continued to the present. The stone is more than two meters high, and has a shape similar to that of a mushroom, with the top having a circumference of about 7 meters. Some consider that it resembles a womb. The fertility rite involves girls of marriageable age consulting the rock (as if it were an oracle) to find out how long before th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cistus Ladanifer
''Cistus ladanifer'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Cistaceae. It is native to the western Mediterranean region. Common names include gum rockrose, labdanum, common gum cistus, and brown-eyed rockrose. Description It is a shrub growing tall and wide. The leaves are evergreen, lanceolate, 3–10 cm long and 1–2 cm broad, dark green above and paler underneath. The flowers are 5–8 cm diameter, with 5 papery white petals, usually with a red to maroon spot at the base, surrounding the yellow stamens and pistils. The whole plant is covered with the sticky exudate of fragrant resin, the source of labdanum, used in herbal medicine and perfumery. Ecology ''C. ladanifer'' is particularly well suited to the Mediterranean climate, standing both long summer droughts and cold weather. It is an extremely aggressive plant which has taken over much of former farmland and grasslands in the mountain regions of central Spain and much of southern Portugal. In S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gum Rockrose
''Cistus ladanifer'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Cistaceae. It is native to the western Mediterranean region. Common names include gum rockrose, labdanum, common gum cistus, and brown-eyed rockrose. Description It is a shrub growing tall and wide. The leaves are evergreen, lanceolate, 3–10 cm long and 1–2 cm broad, dark green above and paler underneath. The flowers are 5–8 cm diameter, with 5 papery white petals, usually with a red to maroon spot at the base, surrounding the yellow stamens and pistils. The whole plant is covered with the sticky exudate of fragrant resin, the source of labdanum, used in herbal medicine and perfumery. Ecology ''C. ladanifer'' is particularly well suited to the Mediterranean climate, standing both long summer droughts and cold weather. It is an extremely aggressive plant which has taken over much of former farmland and grasslands in the mountain regions of central Spain and much of southern Portugal. In Span ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iberian Language
The Iberian language was the language of an indigenous western European people identified by Greek and Roman sources who lived in the eastern and southeastern regions of the Iberian Peninsula in the pre- Migration Era (before about 375 AD). The ancient Iberians can be identified as a rather nebulous local culture between the 7th and 1st century BC. The Iberian language, like all the other Paleohispanic languages except Basque, became extinct by the 1st to 2nd centuries AD, after being gradually replaced by Latin due to the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Iberian is unclassified: while the scripts used to write it have been deciphered to various extents, the language itself remains largely unknown. Links with other languages have been suggested, especially the Basque language, based largely on the observed similarities between the numerical systems of the two. In contrast, the Punic language of Carthaginian settlers was Semitic, while Indo-European languages of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taifa Of Badajoz
The Taifa of Badajoz (from ar, طائفة بطليوس) was a medieval Islamic Moorish kingdom located in what is now parts of Portugal and Spain. It was centred on the city of Badajoz which exists today as the first city of Extremadura, in Spain. - '''' History The taifa of Badajoz rose, like the other kingdoms of the , after the fragmentation of |
Afonso Henriques
Afonso I of PortugalOr also ''Affonso'' (Archaic Portuguese-Galician) or ''Alphonso'' (Portuguese-Galician) or ''Alphonsus'' (Latin version), sometimes rendered in English as ''Alphonzo'' or ''Alphonse'', depending on the Spanish or French influence. (; born 1106, 1109 or 1111; died 1185), also called Afonso Henriques, nicknamed the Conqueror ( pt, O Conquistador) by the Portuguese, and ''El-Bortukali'' (in Arabic "the Portuguese") and ''Ibn-Arrink'' or ''Ibn Arrinq'' (in Arabic or "son of Henry", "Henriques") by the Moors whom he fought, was the first king of Portugal. He achieved the independence of the County of Portugal, establishing a new kingdom and doubling its area with the ', an objective that he pursued until his death. Afonso was the son of Teresa of León and Henry of Burgundy, rulers of the County of Portugal. Henry died in 1112, leaving Theresa to rule alone. Unhappy with Theresa's romantic relationship with Galician Fernando Pérez de Traba and his politic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reconquista
The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492, in which the Christian kingdoms expanded through war and conquered al-Andalus; the territories of Iberia ruled by Muslims. The beginning of the ''Reconquista'' is traditionally marked with the Battle of Covadonga (718 or 722), the first known victory by Christian military forces in Hispania since the 711 military invasion which was undertaken by combined Arab- Berber forces. The rebels who were led by Pelagius defeated a Muslim army in the mountains of northern Hispania and established the independent Christian Kingdom of Asturias. In the late 10th century, the Umayyad vizier Almanzor waged military campaigns for 30 years to subjugate the northern Christian kingdoms. His armies ravaged the north, ev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The people of the Kingdom of Israel and the ethnic and religious group known as the Jewish people that descended from them have been subjected to a number of forced migrations in their history" and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, "Historically, the religious and ethnic dimensions of Jewish identity have been closely interwoven. In fact, so closely bound are they, that the traditional Jewish lexicon hardly distinguishes between the two concepts. Jewish religious practice, by definition, was observed exclusively by the Jewish people, and notions of Jewish peoplehood, nation, and community were suffused with faith in the Jewish God, the practice of Jewish (religious) la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mozarab
The Mozarabs ( es, mozárabes ; pt, moçárabes ; ca, mossàrabs ; from ar, مستعرب, musta‘rab, lit=Arabized) is a modern historical term for the Iberian Christians, including Christianized Iberian Jews, who lived under Muslim rule in Al-Andalus following the conquest of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom by the Umayyad Caliphate. Initially, the vast majority of Mozarabs kept Christianity and their dialects descended from Latin. Eventually, some converted to Islam and were influenced, in varying degrees, by Arab customs and knowledge, and sometimes acquired greater social status in doing so. The local Romance vernaculars, with an important contribution of Arabic and spoken by Christians and Muslims alike, have also come to be known as the Mozarabic language. Mozarabs were mostly Roman Catholics of the Visigothic or Mozarabic Rite. Due to Sharia and Fiqh being confessional and only applying to Muslims, the Christians paid the jizya tax, the only relevant Islamic Law oblig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabs
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the western Indian Ocean islands (including the Comoros). An Arab diaspora is also present around the world in significant numbers, most notably in the Americas, Western Europe, Turkey, Indonesia, and Iran. In modern usage, the term "Arab" tends to refer to those who both carry that ethnic identity and speak Arabic as their native language. This contrasts with the narrower traditional definition, which refers to the descendants of the tribes of Arabia. The religion of Islam was developed in Arabia, and Classical Arabic serves as the language of Islamic literature. 93 percent of Arabs are Muslims (the remainder consisted mostly of Arab Christians), while Arab Muslims are only 20 percent of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Visigoths
The Visigoths (; la, Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is known as the Migration Period. The Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups, including a large group of Thervingi, who had moved into the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had played a major role in defeating the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths varied, with the two groups making treaties when convenient, and warring with one another when not. Under their first leader, Alaric I, the Visigoths invaded Italy and sacked Rome in August 410. Afterwards, they began settling down, first in southern Gaul and eventually in Hispania, where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom and maintained a presence from the 5th to the 8th centuries AD. The Visigoths first settled in southern Gaul as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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