Tolmo de Minateda

The tolmo is a rocky pillar-like hill in a plain of approximately 7 hectares, which stands at a strategic crossroads between the southern part of the Meseta Central and the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; this route followed the Roman road Complutum-Carthago Nova (Toletum-Cartago de Esparta in medieval times).

[4] After the arrival of the Muslims, the city was one of those included in the pact signed in 713 between the comes or doge Teodomiro and the conqueror Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa.

The oldest is from the 2nd–1st centuries BC, of ataludada form and built with masonry, although in its interior there are vestiges that date back to the Bronze Age.

Some ashlars with monumental inscriptions have allowed us to know that this work was done in the second half of the year 9 B.C., under the auspices of the Emperor Augustus and the more or less direct intervention of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, governor of the province.

[5] Around the complex there was a cemetery with numerous graves and burials reserved for lay and religious elites, who sought the protection of the relics of the church.

To the south of the site there is an enclosure closed by a long wall, probably a Visigothic "castellum", which confirms the strategic location of the tolmo and its relationship with the road that gave it meaning.

[7] The Junta of Communities of Castilla–La Mancha declared Tolmo de Minateda as one of its five archaeological parks, together with Segobriga, Alarcos, Carranque and Recopolis.