Citânia de Briteiros | Guimarães 🇵🇹

Located a few kilometres from Guimarães, on the top of the São Romão mountain, above the valley of the Ave river, the Citânia de Briteiros surprises with its scenic beauty and for being one of the most expressive protohistoric settlements in the Iberian Peninsula, due to the size and monumentality of its walls, its urban planning and its architecture.

The still incipient traces of the organisation of a "city" are clearly visible in the site, in the streets protected by a set of walls, inside which were sheltered houses with a circular or rectangular layout, sometimes arranged in small "stables", including shelters for livestock.

The Citânia de Briteiros is one of the paradigmatic sites in the History of Portuguese and Peninsular Archaeology. Its study began in 1874, when Francisco Martins Sarmento directed the first campaign of archaeological work, which continued in the following years.

In the 20th century, excavation or restoration campaigns were resumed by several archaeologists and, as a result of successive works, today a large area of ​​ruins can be seen, both on the upper platform (acropolis) and on the eastern slope, but the subsoil of the settlement still hides many secrets and valuable scientific information.

The initial phase of use of the Monte de São Romão dates back to the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic, when several panels with rock engravings were carved into the granite cliffs on the eastern side of the slope. As a habitat, the occupation of the site can be dated to the beginning of the first millennium BC, within the period designated as the Atlantic Bronze Age. However, the golden age of the settlement dates back to the 2nd century BC, and it continued to be inhabited after the integration of the northwest of the peninsula into the Roman Empire, during the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. In the 10th century, a small Christian hermitage was built on the acropolis, among the remains of the ancient settlement.

The ruins of the Citânia, its subsoil and the objects collected bear witness to millennia of history. Various materials attesting to this occupation can be seen at the Museu da Cultura Castreja, at Solar da Ponte, in Briteiros.