Amaya (Burgos)

The suffix io-ia is also used to form action names or toponyms, implying that the meaning of Amaya or Amaia is "mother city", as it will be called later "the capital".

[3][4] Amaya was one of the main villages of the Cantabri Celtic tribes, and played a key role in the Cantabrian wars during the Roman conquest of Hispania, and later, during the Visigothic Kingdom, as the capital of the Duchy of Cantabria.

Peter, the provincial dux, led his people into refuge in the mountains, and after the local noble Pelayo of Asturias in the neighbor region of Asturias started a rebellion against the Berber garrison, Dux Peter as other western Galician nobles supported the election of him as new King or Princeps in the lead against the common enemy.

In the first stages of the Reconquista, the city was part of the repopulating efforts of the Kingdom of Asturias in the border region of Bardulia, the primitive territories of Castile.

At that time it was an important and significant place, as a very old saying states: "Harto era Castilla pequeño rincón, cuando Amaya era la cabeza y Montes de Oca el mojón" (A very small corner was Castile, when Amaya was the head and Montes de Oca the boundary stone).