Touças Medieval Graveyard

The archaeological project of the Necropolis Medieval das Touças (Touças Medieval Graveyard) is an archaeological and cultural enhancement project, integrated in a rural area of the northern interior of the Portuguese territory, about 500 meters north of the medieval village of Garganta, in the parish of S. Martinho de Anta, in the municipality of Sabrosa, in Alto Douro Wine Region, classified, in 2001, as World Cultural Heritage.

The Medieval Necropolis of Touças is a complex, comprehensive and dynamic archaeological site throughout its history. Referenced for the first time by Colonel Albino Lopo, still in the first quarter of the 20th century and designed by him, the site was forgotten until the 1980/1990s, when Dr. Huet Bacelar Gonçalves refers to it again. However, he was far from imagining the relevance, complexity and anthropic density of the site. It was also visited hundreds of times by the poet and writer Miguel Torga, who, in his youth, tried his first incursion into the archaeological "sciences", making a small excavation in the search for information that would allow a better understanding of the site. Miguel Torga naturally abandons the experiment, but reports this adventure in one of his writings.

The archaeological project and the Archaeological Field Summer Camp, approved by the General Directorate of Portuguese Cultural Heritage, still in 2019, seeks to characterise, from an archaeological point of view, the site. The archaeological work carried out to date (June 2022) has essentially allowed us to identify a workshop of medieval granite sarcophagi, a historic medieval quarry, various utensils related to stonework and quarrying, a residential or religious structure in dry joint masonry with a kind of apse and, among the most interesting artefacts, a liriform type buckle, Visigothic, dating from the 7th / 8th century AD, stands out.~

Within the scope of the project, several articles have already been published in national and international magazines and a book of a touristic/cultural character and respective app for iOS and Android, integrating the project and the archaeological site.