Tower of Hercules

Template:Short description Template:Infobox historic site

The Tower of Hercules (Template:Langx, Template:Langx) is the oldest known extant Roman lighthouse. Built in the 1st century, the tower is located on a peninsula about Template:Convert from the center of A Coruña, Galicia, in northwestern Spain. Until the 20th century, it was known as the Farum Brigantium.<ref name="unesco"/> The Latin word farum is derived from the Greek Φάρος, Pharos, for the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The structure stands Template:Convert tall and overlooks the North Atlantic coast of Spain. The tower was renovated in 1791.

There is a sculpture garden on the grounds of the lighthouse featuring works by Pablo Serrano and Template:Ill.<ref name="Baldwin1847">Template:Cite book Template:Failed verification</ref> The Tower of Hercules is a National Monument of Spain and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 27 June 2009.<ref name="unesco">UNESCO website, of Hercules</ref> It is the second-tallest lighthouse in Spain, after the Faro de Chipiona.

Construction and historyEdit

File:Cseviuslvpvus.jpg

Cornerstone with name of the ancient Roman architect

The tower is known to have existed by the 1st century. It was built (or perhaps rebuilt) under Trajan, possibly on foundations following a design that was Phoenician in origin. The design was based on the original plans of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Its base preserves a cornerstone with the inscription {{#invoke:Lang|lang}},<ref name="Arte">Template:Cite book</ref> ascribing the tower's design to the architect Gaius Sevius Lupus, from Aeminium (present-day Coimbra, Portugal) in the former province of Lusitania, as an offering to the Roman god of war, Mars. The tower has been in consistent use since the 2nd century. The original tower was shorter and wider than the current tower, as the surviving core was surrounded by a spiral ramp. The outline of this ramp is still visible in the restored exterior. The final storey of the tower was likely topped with a dome.

The earliest known reference to the lighthouse at Brigantium is by Paulus Orosius in {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, written around 415–417:<ref>Paulus Orosius, Historiae adversum Paganos, i.2.71.</ref>

("At the second angle of the circuit circumnavigating Hispania, where the Gallaecian city of Brigantia is sited, a very tall lighthouse is erected among a few commemorative works, for looking towards Britannia.")

File:Torre de Hércules plan.jpg

lang}}, 1792

In 1788, the surviving Template:Convert tower core was given a neoclassical restoration, including a new Template:Convert fourth storey.<ref name="unesco"/> The restoration was undertaken by naval engineer Eustaquio Giannini during the reign of Charles III of Spain, and was finished in 1791.<ref name="unesco"/> UNESCO praised the work: "The Tower of Hercules was restored in the 18th century in an exemplary manner, which has protected the central core of the original Roman monument while restoring its technical functions".<ref name="unesco"/> Within, the much-repaired Roman and medieval masonry remains visible.

The Romans who conquered this region of Spain believed it to be, in a figurative sense, the end of the Earth – hence its name, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}. This region is notorious for shipwrecks, earning it the name {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, "Coast of Death".

MythsEdit

File:Torre de Hércules - DivesGallaecia2012-62.jpg

Breogán and the Tower of Hercules

Through the millennia, many mythical stories of the lighthouse's origin have been told. According to a myth that mixes Celtic and Greco-Roman elements, the hero Hercules slew the giant tyrant Geryon after three days and three nights of continuous battle. Hercules then, in a traditional Celtic gesture, buried the head of Geryon with his weapons and ordered that a city be built on the site. The lighthouse, standing atop a skull and crossbones representing the buried head of Hercules' slain enemy, appears in the coat of arms of the city of A Coruña.

According to another legend from the 11th-century Irish compilation {{#invoke:Lang|lang}}—the "Book of Invasions"—King Breogán, the founding father of the Galician Celtic nation, constructed a massive tower of such a grand height that his sons could see a distant green shore from its top. The glimpse of that distant green land lured them to sail north to Ireland. According to the legend, Breogán's descendants stayed in Ireland and are the Celtic ancestors of the current Irish people. A colossal statue of Breogán has been erected near the Tower.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Throughout the Middle Ages, multiple naval crusading itineraries to the Holy Land mentioned the obligatory stopover at the Lighthouse. Usually, the crusader fleets would disembark there to reach the shrine of the Apostle James the Greater at Santiago de Compostela on foot. {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} and {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} helped to perpetuate the legend that the lighthouse had been built by Julius Caesar perhaps due to a misreading of the ancient inscription.<ref>De expugnatione Lyxbonensi, trans. Charles W. David (Philadelphia, 2000); Villegas-Aristizábal, Lucas, "A Frisian Perspective on Crusade in Iberia as Part of the Sea Journey to the Holy Land, 1217–1218", Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd Series 15 (2018): 69-149.</ref>

Possible locations of BrigantiaEdit

File:Torre de Hércules, ventanas del pasado..jpg

Close-up of wall and spiral that once supported a ramp

Early geographical descriptions of the location of Brigantia point out that the town could be actually located in A Coruña or the location of the modern town of Betanzos. There is some debate about this, as the people of Betanzos claim it as a fact that Betanzos is "the former city of Brigancia"<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> until the 17th century, both in literary accounts as well as in maps, and they also believe that the name Betanzos is a phonetical evolution from Brigantium > Breganzo > Betanzos. This could, however, be a false etymology.

The Betanzos tradition claims that the port of Betanzos was getting too small for the larger medieval ships and that king Alfonso IX of León decided to create a bigger port nearby in the 13th century. The place he chose was an uninhabited place called Clunia, which later on evolved to Cruña and eventually Coruña. The place name Clunia is believed to come from the Proto-Celtic root *klou̯ni (cf. Old Irish cluain), meaning meadow.

However, the A Coruña tradition maintains that the "port" of Betanzos (which is a fluvial one in a quite small river) was far too small for Roman warships to dock at; Julius Caesar, for example, is said to have visited this area <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> with "more than a hundred triremes". A Coruña was an important Roman site, as graveyards and other Roman remains have been found in the city centre,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> demonstrating that the site was inhabited in the Roman period and was deserted only during the early Middle Ages due to Viking attacks, when its people moved inland to O Burgo (now Culleredo). The proponents of A Coruña as Brigantia also explain the different name as a change that occurred in the Middle Ages and point out that the lighthouse, which was called "Pharum Brigantium", was erected in A Coruña, and is at least 25 km (15 miles) (or a day's walk) from Betanzos.

GalleryEdit

Escudo de A Coruña.svg

The Tower of Hercules in the coat of arms of Corunna
Maregeo coruna2.jpg

Oil tanker Aegean Sea burning behind the Tower of Hercules in 1992
Torre de Hércules, La Coruña, España, 2015-09-25, DD 35-37 HDR.jpg

View of the tower and its surroundings.
Tower of Hercules in A Coruña.jpg

View of Torre de Hercules from the street.