Cerro Viejo

A settlement at the centre

Cerro Viejo lies in the municipality of Moya, next to the castle hill. On the surface it covers about 8 hectares and keeps lines of ashlar blocks; the finds include mud brick, clay and flint. Beneath Moya castle there was another Iberian settlement, hard to measure because the medieval fortress covers it, and Marín Rubio records the two as separate sites.

Because of its size and the view from the top, the author proposes Cerro Viejo as the central place of a network of settlements in the Algarra basin in the Early and Middle Iberian periods. She leaves the model open herself: it is a survey-based hypothesis pending excavation.

The 2004 catalogue

Marín Rubio published in the journal SAGVNTVM a catalogue of 50 sites attributed to the Iberian period in the Serranía Baja and the Sierra de Mira. She surveyed Moya, Landete, Talayuelas, Algarra, Casas de Garcimolina, Graja de Campalbo and Garaballa systematically, and Santa Cruz de Moya, Mira and Aliaguilla selectively. She warns that the material is fragmented, altered and out of context, and that fewer sites appear in the Sierra de Mira because it was not surveyed thoroughly.

They lie on hilltops, slopes or flat ground, and almost all of those with a measured size cover less than half a hectare; many keep no visible walls. The smallest, such as La Mogorrita and Cerro Gabaldón in Talayuelas, cover about 600 m²; La Mogorrita has a rectangular enclosure. The author assigns some of them a function: control of the territory at Cerro de San Cristóbal (Landete) or Puntal de la Atalaya (Aliaguilla); a pottery kiln at Ladera del Molino (Mira) and perhaps at Los Tornajos; metalworking at Loma del Pinazo (Talayuelas), of about 0.9 ha and with ore residues, though no analysis confirms it.

The sites in the catalogue, by municipality:

• Moya: Cerro Viejo, the castle, Bajos de la Gonzala (perhaps a necropolis), Cambretas–Barrachina, Valdeltrán, Fuente Engaño, Loma del Mortero, Las Lomas and El Aseteado, flat ground of about 2 ha with slag and flint.
• Algarra: La Borrega, La Cunázara, with three stretches of wall around the hill, and a site on a hill other than the castle’s.
• Landete: Molino Nuevo, El Socarrao, Fuente la Zarza I and III, Cerrillo de Fuen-María, of half a hectare, Cerro de San Cristóbal, Fuente el Cerezo and Hoya de Mira, where a spindle whorl was found.
• Santa Cruz de Moya: Cerro la Puente.
• Talayuelas: Cerro de la Pedriza, with Late Bronze Age material too, Los Cañarejos, Los Arrieros, Las Praderas, La Mogorrita, Ladera del Revolcador, San Roque, Las Hoyuelas, Los Tornajos, Cerro Gabaldón, Vallejo de la Porterilla, El Pradillo, Loma del Pinazo, Llano Blanco and Loma de la Laguna.
• Garaballa: Las Ramblas I and II, La Veguilla, Peña el Rubial, El Hornillo and Rento de Henares.
• Aliaguilla: Loma de la Cañada de las Barcas, Tinada Guandonera and Puntal de la Atalaya.
• Mira: Los Castellares, Ladera del Molino, San Vicente, El Molón III and Los Villares.

Other catalogues

In their 1998 catalogue of Bronze Age mining and metalworking in the province, Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Ignacio Montero record in Talayuelas the Loma de las Sepulturas, with pottery of exceptional quality, a straight wall and loom weights; Laguna Seca, a summit with iron slag; and Cañada del Pozo, with so little material that they do not consider it a settlement. On the boundary with Graja de Campalbo stands Remolcador, on a spur, and in Aliaguilla the Cerritos Picudos, with pottery they partly believe to be Roman.

In Mira, the guide to El Molón de Camporrobles (2009) mentions a fortified hilltop site, El Molón de Mira, and Lorrio and Sánchez de Prado (2008) describe El Molón II as a settlement that arose after the Valencian El Molón was abandoned, with well-documented Islamic pottery.

Plan your visit

Before you go

These are survey sites, neither excavated nor prepared for visitors in the sources consulted. Do not take anything from the ground: loose pottery is part of the site and is the only way to date it.

Combine with

The historic town of Moya and its castle are next door. In Mira, the Cueva Santa del Cabriel is interpreted as an Iberian ritual cave.