page_title: Cividade de Terroso
section_title: Handicrafts
hierarchical_section_title: Cividade de Terroso / Culture / Handicrafts
context_page_description: Cividade de Terroso was an ancient city of the Castro culture in North-western coast of the Iberian Peninsula, situated near the present bed of the Ave river, in the suburbs of present-day Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal.
  Located in the heart of the Castro region, the cividade played a leading role in the early urbanization of the region in the early 1st millennium BC, as one of the oldest, largest and impregnable castro settlements. It was important in coastal trading as it was part of well-established maritime trade routes with the Mediterranean. Celtic and later Carthaginian influence are well-known, it was eventually destroyed after the Roman conquest in 138 BC.
  The city's name in antiquity is not known with certainty but it was known during the Middle Ages as Civitas Teroso. it was built at the summit of Cividade Hill, in the suburban area of Terroso, less than 5 km from the coast, near the eastern edge of modern Póvoa de Varzim.
  Beyond the main citadel, three of Cividade de Terroso's outposts are known: Castro de Laundos, Castro de Navais, and Castro de Argivai. Cividade de Terroso is located just 6,3 km from Cividade de Bagunte both in the North bank of the Ave river.
context_section_description: Castro ceramics (goblets and vases) evolved during the ages, from a primitive system to the use of potter's wheels. However, the amphorae and the use of the glass only started to be common with the Romanization. These amphorae, essentially, served for the transport and storage of cereals, fruits, wine and olive oil.
  Many of the ceramics found in the Cividade de Terroso had local characteristics. Pottery was seen as a man's work and significant amounts were found with great variety, showing that it was a cheap, important and accessible product.
  However, the city's ceramic structure are practically identical to the ones found in other castros of the same period. The decoration of the vases was of the incisive type (decoration cut into the clay before firing), but scapulae and impressed vases also existed; adobe lace, in rope form, with or without incisions are also found.
  Drawings in "S", assigned as palmípedes, are frequently found in engraved vases, these could be printed with other printed or engraved drawings. Other decorative forms, that can appear mixed and with diverse techniques, include circles, triangles, semicircles, lines, in zig-zag, in a total of about two hundred of different kinds of drawings.
  Weaving was sufficiently generalized and was seen as a woman's duty and was also progressing, especially during the Roman period; some weights of sewing press were found and sets of ten of cossoiros. The discovery of shears strengthened the idea of the systematic breeding of sheep to use their wool.
  Numerous vestiges of metallurgic activities had been detected and great amounts of casting slags, fibulae, fragmented iron objects and other metals remains were discovered, mostly lead, copper/bronze, tin and perhaps gold. Gatos (for repairing ceramics), pins, fibulae, stili and needles in copper or bronze, demonstrating that the work in copper and its alloys was one of the most common activities of the town. The iron was used for many every-day objects, some nails were found, but also hooks and a tip of a scythe or dagger.
  Near the door of the wall (in the southwest of the city) a workshop was identified, given that in the place some vestiges of this activity had been found such as the use of fire with high temperatures, nugget and slags for casting metals, ores and other indications.
  Goldsmithery contributed for Póvoa de Varzim being a reference for proto-historical archaeology in North-western Iberian Peninsula. Namely, with the finding of some complete jewellery: the Earrings of Laundos and the articulated necklace and earrings of Estela. In the proper Cividade, some certifications of works in gold and silver had been collected by Rocha Peixoto. In all the mountain range of Rates, the ancient mining explorations are visible: Castro and Roman ones, given that these hills possessed the essential gold and silver used for jewellery production.
  In 1904, a mason while building a mill in the top of São Félix Hill, in the vicinity of the smaller Castro de Laundos, found a vase with jewellery inside, these pieces had been bought by Rocha Peixoto that took them to the Museum of Porto. The jewellery was made using an evolved technique, very similar to ones made in the Mediterranean, namely with the use of plates and welds, filigree and granulated.
caption: Castro ceramics had many different drawings.
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