This museum in Guimarães, Portugal was founded in 1885 to display artifacts from pre-Roman archaeological sites in northern Portugal. It is housed in the gothic cloisters of a former 14th century St. Dominic Convent. The museum contains a rich collection of ceramics, tools, weapons and other objects dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period that provide insight into the lives and culture of the Celtic and Luso-Roman peoples who inhabited the region. One of the most prominent artifacts is the Pedra Formosa, a five ton granite monolith from the 6th century BC that served as part of a bath house and may have had astronomical or ritual significance for the people.

1. Martins Sarmento
Museum,
in Guimarães
http://www.geira.pt/museus/Coleccoes/index.asp?id=3
A collection of pre-Roman artifacts
from sites in northern Iberia

2. This archaeological museum was founded in 1885 in
Guimarães, to gather artifacts from pre-Roman sites
in the North of Portugal. It’s the most important
museum of the “castro” culture.
It is also housed in parts of a previous St. Dominic
Convent from the 14th century, namely its gothic
cloisters.

3. The Museum is a private foundation and was created after excavations
in archaeological sites of the celtic era, most of which a few miles North
of Guimarães, Portugal. They were led since 1874 by Martins Sarmento,
whose name was given to the museum.
This is one of my favourite small museums.

5. St. Dominic convent‘s
gothic cloister is a magic
place, one of the hidden
secrets of Guimarães.
It is classified heritage for
its artistic refinement :
arches resting on paired
thin columns, careful arch
framing, naturalist sculpted
capitals.

6. The richly decorated capitals figure fauna, flora, humans and
fantastic creatures. There are no two alike.

9. In the cloister’s arcade,
two warriors of the pre-
national celtic tribes that
occupied the northwest
of the Peninsula.
Sculpted in granite.

10. A possible interpretation of these carvings is that the left
petroglyph is for water, the right one for wind. This is a
typical stone from Iberian celtic settlements.

11. A stone from the 1876 excavations led by Martins Sarmento in Briteiros.
Maybe it’s part of the lintel or door header from a castro house.

13. The Museum galleries display a rich collection of artifacts from the pre-
Roman era: ceramics, iron instruments, jewelry.

15. Bronze spears and axes
(10th to 9th cent. BC)
Luso-Roman
ceramics

16. A bronze Roman Phalera.

17. Roman Lucernes
(oil lamps).

18. Ampulla, a ribbed blue bowl, from southern Portugal.

19. A magnificent Luso-Roman bowl in light green glass (1st
cent.) from Briteiros.

20. A Pre-Roman golden
bracelet (3rd cent. BC
to 3rd AD)

21. Maybe the most spectacular object in the Museum is this celtic toy, a bronze car
representing a sacrifice rite and dedicated to a war deity: it’s dated from around
500-300 BC.

23. The Pedra Formosa (fair stone) was found in a Briteiros castro’s balneary. It’s a
granite monolith, probably worked about three thousand years ago, weighing
approximately five tons. It served as Stela of an ensemble of baths (steam and
water) built around the 6th century BC in Briteiros.
It’s the best known and most iconic object in the collection.

24. The bas-relief stone has an astral motif on the top of the triangular shape,
probably the Sun and the sky; but the structure also reminds of a stylized
body - head, arms, open legs; and the base petroglyphs might represent
water. The central decoration can be the village as well as earth (land).
The hole was the passage for the bather into the hot chamber.

25. The Pedra Formosa was a partition wall in the warm room of the bath compound,
giving access to the hot bath room by the small hole in the base. This was a well
engineered structure.
There are diverse opinions, some defending this was a crematory and funerary
chamber.

26. This is how the bath system might look; it’s remarkable how pre-Roman
tribes had already developped a system with this complexity.

27. Citânia de Briteiros is a pre-Roman fortified ‘castro’ settlement
from around 2000 BC. In the 19th century the finding attracted
several german and nordic archaeologists’ attention.

28. A ‘castro’ is a north-Iberian pre-Roman settlement, from the late iron or bronze
age, associated with the Celtic presence in Iberia.
The society from the Bronze Age to Roman occupation in the 1st century AD was
a dynamic, varied community in constant change. Briteiros grew up to an important
three-rampart city, a large compound with paved roads dominating the area and
providing administration, public baths and other services.

29. Briteiros was surely a castro ‘capital’, an epicentre of power over a large area.

30. The top of a hill dominating the landscape was the favorite location of
castro settlements. Here the Council House, the largest in the village.

31. Stone was the material of choice to build round houses like these,

34. Close to Briteiros, the baroque manor house Solar da Ponte hosts the
Museu Castrejo (museum of the castro culture) which displays some
further troves.

35. © Mário Ricca, 2017