history of the house

The Solstice-rock

Sunset on 21 June.

Excavation of an earlier house.

remains of a 7000 years old grave, (15 minutes walk)

Casa Principal in 2016

The history of the house starts may be 6000 years ago: the rock on top of the hill, near to Casa Miradouro to be shaped to indicate solstice: imagine a straight line over the back of this rock until the Horisont, and you will find the place where the sun sets on 21 June. Calendar ceremonies may have been taken place by the community that also built the anta (a prehistoric grave on 1 km from the house in North Western direction) and the peculiar circular cups carved out of the rocks of pego do sino, a canyon about 1 km from the house in North-Eastern direction.
Later, the solstice rock became a corner stone of a house. We excavated part of the remains of that house. It must have had at least twelve rooms and possibly more. The Casa Miradouro may have been the chapel of this Monte. In the direct surroundings we found some more traces of buildings, suggesting that there was a small neighborhood on that hill. We guess that some 200 years ago the buildings were in that bad shape that the owners decided not to renovate but to build a new house: what now is the Casa Principal.
Archeologists told us that it would be very strange if the Romans have not inhabited this place. As the room floors all have sizes of Roman feet, underneath the floor there may be Roman remains. The Roman highway between Merida and Evora passed near to the Herdade and a secondary road leading to the river Tera and to Pego do Sino (where a Roman milestone was found) must have crossed Marmeleira. Although we did not find solid proof for roman inhabitation, there is some plaster work on the solstice rock that is typically Roman.
The possibility exists that the Mores have used the place in Early medieval times. They ruled the region from the 8th until the 13th century. As the remains show three rows of four rooms, there may have been an inner courtyards surrounded by rooms. This is a typical architectural feature of a Morish house.   
The casa principal was built some 200 years ago. At that time that the Herdade da Marmeleira covered several thousands of hectares. In the first half of 20th century, it had a staff of some 30 persons. But during the grain harvest time some 80 extra laborers and their families, mainly from Trassos Montes, came to assist. Probably, the big hall was used for cooking and sleeping. As a substantial part of the salary was paid in bread and wine (5l per family per day!), a lot of singing must have been heard as well. The laborers were badly paid and the owner was relatively rich. But the buildings have never had electricity, running water or a sewage system. The only ornament of the house is the cap of the chimney.
The Herdade had its own grain mills. They used the water power of the river Tera. The ruins of those mills are spooky and intriguing.  
Transport and work on the land was mainly done with oxen. Each oxen manager had two couples, one for the morning and one for the afternoon. Unlike horses or dogs, you cannot teach oxen what to do by punishing and rewarding. You have to sing for them. Oxen managers invented their own songs.
Probably shortly after the revolution of 1974 the Herdade was abandoned, may be after first been taken over by the laborers. But already earlier the Herdade lost its force to compete with farmers on more fertile land in Portugal and abroad. While being abandoned, doors were used as fire wood and the roof collapsed.  Cows, sheep and pigs of local shepherds became the new owners of the house. In some periods of the year some shepherds lived in what now is “Casa Vicente”.
The Herdade has gone through the hands of several capital investors, until in 2002 we bought it. It was in bad shape but the walls could still receive a new roof. We renovated it without changing mayor architectural features. For the first time the monte got electricity, running water and a sewage system.
Recent developments do not stop. Since 2002 some new houses were built (although not in the direct surroundings), kms of fence were placed, laguas (artificial lakes) were constructed upstream causing dry rivers downstream. Nevertheless, the basic structure of the landscape: gently rolling slopes with oak trees and Esteva (Cistus Latanifer) has not changed. The cool nights with shutting stars and the sounds of owls and foxes, may last forever.

The Casa Principal in 2003.

apartment nr 5 (2003)

Casa Vicente 2003

Another mystery is the floor map of our house: see the image below. According to Antonio Tavares it has some similarity with the floor map of a church. There are several options to interpret this feature.
The most obvious is “co-incidence”, for no special reason and with no link to a previously built structure. It is for certain that the placement of the buildings is at least partly based on using existing rock formations as cornerstone or strengthening walls.
Another possibility is that the builder and owner had a goal: he gave the floor map the shape of a church to gain divine blessings or to show off as a religious person.
The most intriguing option is of course that the current building was built on top of the ruins of a church (and if so, that this church was built on top of something else).  Intriguing indeed, but it has to be said that we found no proof for it as yet. This church or convent must have been very big. But as far as we know no historical documents exist that tell about it. And when digging the soil we still did not find artifacts that support this option.
On the other hand, we have many indications for habitation of our locality for many centuries, may be even millennia. So, we parked this mystery is parked in the category “dilemma”: not finding proof, does that mean tat it does not exist or that we did not dig enough.