CEMETERY AND ANTHROPOMORPHOUS TOMBS

Municipal cemetery and anthropomorphous tombs

The current municipal cemetery was built in the forties of the last century. During those years people were still buried in the soil, up to the generalization of the niches made of brick and cement.

There are certain places that transmit the same sensations and that keep an essence over time. It is curious to see how the cemetery is located in a zone where, a few centuries ago, our ancestors were buried. Proof of that are the anthropomorphous tombs excavated in the slate that are next to the cemetery. According to the studies, it is very possible that they date back from the 5th to the 7th centuries (Visigoth period). There are five: the so-called "Tomb of the Moor", placed in a hill of the estate Castrejón, close to the tank on the way to the cemetery; and other four tombs in another hill in the estate Castrejoncillo, in the boundary with Castrejón and a few meters far from the cemetery. The toponymy of these two estates may be also an indication of former forts. All the tombs are located in small hills, with different orientations and measures. On average, they are 50 cm depth, 1,75 m length and 50 cm width. The deepest, widest and longest is the "Tomb of the Moor", being the only one which, in addition, has a rabbet in the rock where it would fit the gravestone. In no case, there is a trace, neither of the grave goods. They were simultaneously the grave and the coffin, all they have a rectangular form and in most cases, they were lowered to have a gap for the head, the shoulders and even the feet.

It is possible that the location of that beautiful landscape next to the river Tamuja and the Penillanura, together with the calm local atmosphere, inspired those peoples to give their loved ones a burial since it happens nowadays 1500 years later in the same place.