Ammaia - a Lost Roman City

After visiting the mountaintop castle and town of Marvão, we went down to the tiny village of Portagem. Just up the river from this village, we stopped in a beautiful valley to see the archaeological museum and site of the lost city of Ammaia.

The city of Ammaia is the most important Roman ruin in the Northern Alentejo region. It is located in the Natural Park of Serra de São Mammete, not far from where we are staying, in Castelo de Vide. The ruins cover almost 25 metric acres, so it is a huge site. Only a small section has been excavated but it took us most of the afternoon to walk around it.

The local population have always known about the Roman remains, but it was only at the beginning of the last century did people begin to realize that what was buried in the Valley of the Aramanha was maybe a Roman city, not a villa.

Built from scratch in the first century AD, it reached its splendor during the next three hundred years. It was a city of 5,000 to 6,000 people with running water, gates, a forum, baths and temples.

The city suffered after the collapse of Rome on the Peninsula in the 3rd century. By the time of the Moorish invasion the 9th century, the remaining residents fled to high hills of Marvão - easy to defend in a time of chaos. Ammaia's stones served to build other places, walls and monuments. The bridge would stand until the 1980s.

In the 9th Century, all references to the city being lived in, stopped. Over the years, it was pillaged, looted for stone, and buried.

Amongst the people who lived in the nearby town of Portagem, there had always been a myth, about a large city that used to be in the area.

In the middle of the century the first excavations were carried out and then during the last 10 years, the work intensified using new technologies, including radiography.

Now archaeologists know the extent, design and architecture of Ammaia. It was an amazing find and an article was written about it in a July 2015 National Geographic magazine.

The work being done to further explore the site is now run by a private foundation. It promises to bring more revelations about this city that may shed more light on the story of Roman power and its decay in the Iberian Peninsula.Read more