BASÍLICA DE EIO (Tolmo de Minateda)
Thanks: To our friends Óscar O. Otero and Raúl Romero Bartolomé, lovers of Spanish Pre Romanesque Art, who
BASÍLICA DE EIO (Tolmo de Minateda)
Thanks: To our friends Óscar O. Otero and Raúl Romero Bartolomé, lovers of Spanish Pre Romanesque Art, who have provided us with the photographs used in this file.
- The Tor of Minateda is a site known since long ago. Several excavations have been pracisted there intensively since 1988. From those a Visigothic episcopal ensemble located on the upper plateau has come to light.
- It is formed by a basilic with baptistry and another large building, supposedly palatial, built by the end of the 6th century, modified in the 7th and demolished during the Muslim conquest.
At nine Km from Hellín, on a plateau that dominates a strategic area in the way between the Mediterranean coast and the centre of the peninsula, we find remnants of a population that existed at least from the Bronze Age, that would become important, both, in times of the Iberians as during the Roman Empire, that reached its zenith by the end of the 6th century when it became a Visigothic See as well as a bastion in front of the peninsular east still taken by the Byzantines. It was included among the territories handed over to the Visigothic duke Teodomiro -Tudmir in Arabic- in his treaty of 713 with the Muslim conquerors, was destroyed by Abd al Rashman the 2nd in 825 during the pacification of the Kora of Tudmir.
During the excavations that have been conducted since 1966 the important ensemble of constructions of the Visigothic period has come to light; from which we can remark the fortification of the access and the episcopal ensemble formed by a three nave basilic with a baptistry attched to its feet and a large building of palatial type located very near, at the north of the basilic. It is important to point out that materials from Roman constructions in the area have been reutilized abundantly. The whole Visigothic complex corresponds to a sole urbanistic project created in one only phase, having previously flattened the ground of sand rock, for what any possible previous constructions was wiped out. In this particular area it has been also found water deposits, granaries and liquid storage cisterns as well as tombs in the external environment of the chevet and the baptistry, in which backside there was a space separated by walls dedicated exclusively to children burials. The result is, together with Recópolis, the best example of Visigothic urban complex we know so far.
An inscription of the Roman period that shows it is the city of Ilunum, and the meaningful Visigothic remnants that have been excavated have made it possible to acknowledge it as the important episcopal See of Eio -or Elo-, created at he end of the 6th century to replace the diocese of Ilici that was in the hands of th Byzantines.
So far, only the excavation of the area of the church has been completed. It is a traditional basilic with three naves and a sole apse looking east. There is also a counterchoir opposite the apse with an attached baptistry, that fill the last stretches of the central nave and four lateral compartments; three on the southern side on the first northern side.
The 37.5 m long basilic is one of the largest known from the Spanish Pre Romanesque period. Its width, of 12.5 m in the first stretch is being shortened slightly in the lateral naves up to 11.5 m on the last stretch, and the central nave remains fixed (5m). The naves are separated by two rows of eight reutilized columns -though a pillar was used in the position of the fourth column on the southern side- forming eight stretches to which are added the baptistry, longer and different in structure. The columns lean upon Attic bases that also come from previous constructions and that are supported upon spaces chiseled on the rock, with foundations made with mortar. The stretches must have been covered by semicircular rounds of arches, of which some voussoirs and a great part of one of the arches have been found.
Although it is not known whether the naves were equal in height or if the central one was higher with windows on the upper part of its walls, this option seems to be the most likely one because that is what was ususal for this k