Sunday, September 20, 2009

Spanish unesco whs

After a trade with Juan, i've received these 3 unesco cards, 2 of them from new places, Lugo and Las Medulas.

"Lugo is a city in northwestern Spain, in the autonomous community of Galicia. It is the capital of the province of Lugo.
Located on a site above the Minho river and named after the Celtic god Lugus, it is the only city in Europe to be surrounded by completely intact Roman walls, which reach a height of 10 to 15 metres along a 2117 m m circuit ringed with 71 towers. The walk along the top is continuous round the circuit. These 3rd century walls are protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The bridge over the Minho is essentially of Roman date, though many repairs over the centuries have effaced its Roman character." - in: wikipedia

"Las Médulas, located near the town of Ponferrada in the region of El Bierzo (León province, Castile and León, Spain), used to be the most important gold mine in the Roman Empire. Las Médulas Cultural Landscape is listed by the UNESCO as one of the World Heritage Sites.
The spectacular landscape of Las Médulas resulted from the Ruina Montium, a Roman mining technique described by Pliny the Elder in 77 AD consisted of undermining the mountain with large quantities of water supplied by at least seven long aqueducts tapping the rivers in the nearby mountains. The same aqueducts were used to wash the extensive gold deposits, a precursor of Californian hydraulic mining. The area Hispania Tarraconensis had been invaded in 25 BC by the emperor Augustus, so the mining was initiated some time after the region had been subdued.
To bring the necessary water from the Sierra de La Cabrera mountains to Las Médulas, a system of at least seven parallel aqueducts more than a hundred kilometers long in total were constructed, with some parts still well preserved in precipitous locations, and including some rock-cut inscriptions." - in: wikipedia

The Tower of Hercules, in the city of Coruña, is the newest unesco site in Spain. I've received a card from there not so long ago which can be found some posts below with detailed information about it. I gave the facts and now some myths about this ancient roman lighthouse.
"Through the millennia many mythical stories of its origin have been told. According to a myth that blends Celtic and Greco-Roman elements, the hero Hercules slew the giant tyrant Geryon after three days and three nights of continuous battle. Hercules then—in a Celtic gesture— buried the head of Geryon with his weapons and ordered that a city be built on the site. The lighthouse atop a skull and crossbones representing the buried head of Hercules’ slain enemy appears in the coat-of-arms of the city of Corunna.
Another legend embodied in the 11th-century compilation Lebor Gabala Erren— the "Book of Invasions"— King Breogán, the founding father of the Galician Celtic nation, constructed here a massive tower of such a grand height that his sons could see a distant green shore from its top. The glimpse of that distant green land lured them to sail north to Ireland. A colossal statue of Breogán has been erected near the Tower." - in: wikipedia

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