The A-32 highway uncovers an exceptional Iberian sanctuary in Jaén

Iberian votive offerings found in Haza del Rayo, Jaén.

The construction of the A-32 highway in Jaén, possibly the province of the Peninsula that treasures the most Iberian archaeological heritage, put looters on the trail, who began to trace the route of the infrastructure in works of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda. Soon several complaints warned of a possible plunder of bronze votive offerings (offerings in the shape of people, organs or human limbs) in the place called Haza del Rayo (Sabiote, Jaén), a pre-Roman site from the 3rd century BC. C. The authors of the recent scientific article

Offerings in the wetland: the Iberian sanctuary of Haza del Rayo

it states that this event “was the trigger for the start of an urgent activity to stop the looting and that it allowed the site to be investigated.

A unique opportunity to systematically approach the study and characterization of this new Iberian cult space ”.

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More than fifty pieces of "exceptional value" have already been located, left by those who made pilgrimages to this place requesting the protection of the divine. “This space is one of the few where a contextual analysis of the deposits with votive offerings has been possible, given that its known antecedents - the sanctuary of Castellar and that of Collado de los Jardines (Santa Elena, Jaén) - were systematically looted since the beginning of the 20th century ”, says the report headed by Carmen Rueda, professor of Prehistory and researcher at the Institute of Iberian Archeology of the University of Jaén.

The researchers who signed the study, Carmen Rueda Galán, Juan P. Bellón, Ana B. Herranz, Miguel A. Lechuga, Arturo Ruiz Rodríguez, María Isabel Moreno Padilla, Manuel Molinos, Carmen Rísquez, Mario Gutiérrez Rodríguez and Marta Portillo, of the Universities of Jaén and Granada and the CSIC, interpret the sanctuary found - an area of ​​approximately 1.3 hectares - as a point of passage, "a stage of a ritual itinerary". This sacred path began in the city of Baecula (Santo Tomé, Jaén), passed through Haza del Rayo and ended at the great sanctuary of Cueva de la Lobera, in Castellar (Jaén), about 20 kilometers away.

The site of Haza del Rayo stands on the so-called Ubeda hill, on whose skirt a natural lagoon stretched between the valleys of the Guadalquivir and Guadalimar rivers, a landscape reference for pilgrims. The first thing the alerted specialists did was assess the extent of the looting. "The extent of the damage produced in the looting was established by georeferencing with a high precision Global Positioning System (GPS)" to draw the "general map" of the abductions. Next, to try to unravel the significance of this ritual ensemble, the experts carried out archaeological excavations, magnetic micro-prospects and combined soil micromorphology analysis, pollen analysis, dating, 3D geodar studies, and metallographic analysis.

Votes, fibulae, rings and plaques found in the Iberian site of Haza del Rayo.

In Haza del Rayo, according to Juan Pedro Pellón, deputy director of the Iberian Archeology Institute of the University of Jaén, the wetland functioned as a point of attraction for devotees.

It is currently dry, but its lands are darker than the rest, since they are clayey and accumulate organic elements.

In them, in fact, excrements of small invertebrates, plant micro-remains, palm leaves and silicon biomicrofossils and sponge spicules have been found, “characteristic of aquatic ecosystems or humid environments”.

On the slope of the hill under which the wetland extended, the Rueda Galán research team has found both male and female votive offerings.

It stands out "an exceptional example of an image of a woman with a profile of fine facial features, cut out on a bronze plate", in addition to a set of plates, many of them decorated.

They can be "specific offerings."

For their part, the exhumed anatomical votive offerings are divided into three categories: legs, phalluses, and arms-hands.

In this last group, a piece stands out with its two arms joined, but with open hands, which connects it "with the universe of protection and healing, where water would play an active and determining role."

Idealized representation of the sanctuary of Haza del Rayo (Jaén) .Iñaki Diéguez

Fibulae have also been exhumed "possibly associated with the offering of garments, cloaks and tunics", earrings and miniatures of spearheads and needles.

As for ceramics, "open forms predominate, such as small plates, made exclusively for ritual purposes."

“We interpret”, the article concludes, “the sanctuary of Haza del Rayo as the consecration of a step, a stage in the ritual itinerary towards the sanctuary of Castellar.

Its status as a landmark and landscape reference would undoubtedly be related and enhanced by the temporary wetland and the intermittent water.

Access to the supraterritorial sanctuaries of Collado de los Jardines and Cueva de la Lobera required a journey that, on some occasions, must have had clear connotations of initiation and improvement ”.

Place where the sanctuary and the ritual lagoon of Haza de Hoyo were located.

The territory where the Haza sanctuary stood was organized in the 3rd century BC.

C around the

oppida

, Iberian fortified cities.

But during the Second Punic War (confrontation between Romans and Carthaginians between 219 and 201 BC) these settlements were abandoned or destroyed, while the sanctuaries - with the arrival of new divinities - survived.

However, “the cult in the wetland loses much of its original meaning, just as other territorial references will gradually lose it, such as Cueva de la Lobera itself.

The natural corridor of Haza del Rayo seems to have continued active occasionally, since the presence of studs [from the boots of the Roman legions] indicates that use, although at a very low frequency, transforming its original function in the face of the new reorganization of the territory. that it takes place fundamentally from the middle of century II a.

C. ".

Rome had put her boot in Hispania.

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