In the collective imagination of several generations, talking about the Visigoths means talking about a long list of kings that many must have learned by heart. Names like Walia, Sisebuto or Recesvinto perhaps still resonate in childhood memories of these lands of Hispania which, after centuries of Romanization, were controlled by a group of peoples from the north. An old empire was disappearing and a new power was rising during the long history of the Iberian Peninsula.
The Hispano-Visigothic kingdom established its capital at Toledo in the middle of the 6th century. From this moment on, the rural world experienced vigorous growth. Thousands of peasants began to found villages, sometimes on the ruins of Roman villas. And, although it is not described with splendor in the chronicles, these people, with their sweat and effort, kept alive a line of “barbarians” who in 589 converted to Catholicism. We can now know the testimony of these communities thanks to archaeology.
The stones have a lot to say. Archaeologists know how to interpret its arrangement on the ground or its relationships with other materials. At Loma Eugenia, a site in the Agra (Hellín) district, the third excavation campaign recently concluded. The work now moves to the laboratory, but first we learn the latest developments from Julia Sarabia, professor at the University of Alicante.
“We found a productive area consisting of a flour mill for community use and a threshing floor for winnowing and threshing cereals; In this campaign we wanted to focus on the knowledge of the habitat spaces of the village beyond the production spaces, we therefore carried out a geomagnetic survey in the entire southern sector of the mill and we saw that there was no lack of underground structures, possible silos and cisterns. , landfills, walls,” explains the project director. And he declares that “based on these results, we opened a new investigation about fifty meters south of the mill and the surprise was that, under a large group of stone collapses, a large building appeared, composed of ‘at least six rooms, built with walls of which only the foundations and some elevations are preserved, but which, although they are in a rural area, reach dimensions very similar to those found in the urban context of the Visigothic episcopal see by El Tolmo de Minateda.
Some very solid constructions which measure the development of these peasant communities. And Sarabia says, “We’re probably looking at a building with living spaces, storage, maybe a work environment and an open space that could have been used as a corral or stable.”
We are further adjusting the context in which this colony was built. We open the book “Tolmo de Minateda. When Hellín was not yet. History and stories”, published by the AIE, in the words of Julia herself: “On the territory of the Visigothic city of Eio, archeology has shown how the vast majority of settlements that emerged at that time will occupy the same agricultural spaces as “Before, they were exploited by Roman establishments.”
In addition to the village of Loma Eugenia, the existence nearby of similar dwellings in Loma Lencina (Hellín) and Torre Uchea (Hellín) has been confirmed. “This leads us to assume that the emergence of these peasant communities is linked to the administrative control of the territory by the bishop and the need to exploit it to obtain primary products to pay taxes to the Visigothic state; even if the written sources of the moment do not clarify these questions,” says the archaeologist.
Domination over the fertile valleys
In recent years, archaeological interest in the Visigothic rural environment has increased. According to experts, these villages were not characterized by their monumentality. It appears that the villages of these early Catholic peasants were functional, built on hills and controlling the fertile valleys. A moment in history that speaks of an economic expansion that led to the emergence of these cities. Places like Loma Eugenia represent the “rural reality” of the Visigoth kingdom, very different from the sumptuous airs of Toledo. Inequality or intrigues within the aristocracy must also have been a constant during these centuries of transition between the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Convulsions in the living room that those who plowed the land we call Hellín were perhaps unaware of.
The prestigious Recópolis stands in the province of Guadalajara. A palatine complex of approximately 33 hectares which was the dream of a Visigothic king inspired by Byzantium. Vicente G. Olaya, in his book “The Seamstress Who Found Treasure While Peeing and Other Stories of Spanish Archeology,” published by Espasa, recounts the 1893 discovery of Juan Catalina García López: “She discovered an enigmatic bare hill at the outskirts of Zorita de los Canes, a small town devoured by an imposing Muslim castle that stands beside and above it. Literally.
During the digging of the mound, located one kilometer from the city center, very powerful walls appeared. Juan Catalina García seemed sure of having found the town of Recaredo, but, as always, no one seemed to pay him much attention.” The journalist explains in this fun and educational work that until 1945-46 there was no There were no more excavations and it was then that it was declared a national monument. Recópolis was connected to Toledo, the capital of the Visigoth kingdom, by the Tagus River.
Downstream, the famous “Treasure of Guarrazar” appeared, in the Tolede town of Guadamur. Luxury goldwork that helps us understand the imbalance of an era. The wealth of the elites against the sacrifice of the peasants. In the lands that today make up Castilla-La Mancha, vestiges of the Visigoth past remain. Places like Santa María de Melque (San Martín de Montalbán), the monuments of Arisgotas (Orgaz) or San Pedro de La Mata (Sonseca).
And to delve deeper into the 6th-8th centuries, in the city of Toledo we find the Museum of Councils and Visigothic Culture. Even further south, without such solemnity, but with the same rites, the women and men who lived in Loma Eugenia still rest under the stones. Once again, Julia Sarabia tells us: “We acted in the area of the necropolis, exhuming another of the tombs that remained intact, covered with slabs.”
Archaeological work in Agra took place along two parallel lines. This second aimed to “continue to know certain aspects of the funerary ritual of this Visigothic population, by obtaining material for carbon 14 dating or by progressing in anthropological studies which show us the sex of the people buried, the age of death, the possible pathologies” he specifies, recalling that in the case of necropolises, professionals intervene on the graves most visible on the surface to “safeguard their remains against possible actions of looting or alteration of this heritage “.
Precisely, the first and only time action was taken in Loma Eugenia before the start of this project was in 1993 and urgently. As is often the case, a chance discovery triggered knowledge of our past. This is what happened when José Zarnorano, Eugenia García and Ramón Izquierdo, visiting the area, realized the particularity of the place. The emergency action was undertaken by María Teresa Rico, Francisco Javier López Precioso and Blanca Gamo Parras. In the scientific article they published, they report: “The excavations made it possible to document the existence of a cemetery of regular size, in which 33 tombs were dug, for the most part made of stone slabs or masonry”.
Let’s return to the archaeological excavation of 2024. “The excavated tomb is again, as in previous campaigns, a tomb for collective use. In this case, three individuals appeared; one in a secondary position, transformed into a bundle and placed at the feet, and two others placed in an anatomical position next to each other, so it is likely that they were buried at the same time a few years after the burial of the first individual.” analyzes Julia Sarabia.
Reused graves
“The ritual is typically Christian from the Visigothic era, as found in the cemetery next to the church of Tolmo de Minateda; that is, bodies wrapped in a shroud, probably in a supine or face-up position, oriented from the head from west to east and without any trousseau element, although they sometimes appear with an element of clothing such as a belt buckle. or similar; “It is likely that the graves are family ones, which is why they are reused over several generations.”
To achieve these hypotheses after fieldwork, the project once again counted on the collaboration of students from the University of Alicante and the co-direction of Victoria Amorós, Marta Torres and Pablo Cánovas. Technical cooperation between the University Institute for Research in Archeology and Historical Heritage of the UA and the Hellín Museum financed by the Town Hall.
Over the coming months, scientific work will focus on the classification and cataloging of ceramic material that appeared in the city area, which “at first glance appears to be material related to kitchen vessels, tableware and jars of conservation ; We will try to reconstruct a fragmented piece and make the corresponding drawings before depositing them in the Albacete Museum,” announces Julia Sarabia among the steps to follow. During this time, the team is immersed in writing a book which will bring together the main data obtained during these first three years of archaeological excavations.
For what is written is no longer torn away by the wind. Today’s archaeologists are writing the chronicle of the forgotten. The story of thousands of people from ancient times who, with their selflessness, built the future of humanity. Simple feats of survival which did not deserve the pen of Saint Isidore of Seville. The Catholic sage of the Visigoths, tireless fighter against heresies, compiler of encyclopedias and, finally, narrator of the history of these kings with bizarre names. The bishop left us a very useful sentence to conclude this article. He wrote: “The remaining lifespan is impenetrable to human knowledge. »
