At Castro de Santiago (Valera, 1997, 2007) two walled
enclosures were built using pre existent granitic rocks on a hill top.
Each enclosure had a gate, built with lateral vertical
granitic slabs and a horizontal threshold in the middle of the entrance. In the
gate of the inner enclosure, the threshold slab presents a sequence of nine carved cup marks. Five of them form a circle, three make an curve over
the circle and one is isolated.
Quite frequent in the south, these engraving are less
common in the region of central Portugal hinterland. They cover a wide
chronology and there are several interpretative proposals for their meaning.
They are highly speculative, but in general they assume a symbolic role for
these cup marks. In the present case, their location in a gate doorstep is
particularly relevant, since gates always tend to have a symbolic status
related to its role of connecting different significant spaces, of transition between
the inside and the outside and their specific meanings. Would these marks
helped to create a change of state in who passed through that gate? Would they protect
the gate? Would they give some sort of warning? Would they represent something
real (for instance a constellation of stars) or just an idea or superstition? And
why were they carved in the inner gate and not in the outside one (that is
quite similar and also have a doorstep slab)? And why in this specific enclosure?
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