CEREMONIAL ENCLOSURES ROUTE
This is an invitation to discover, in the Guadiana River region, an ancient landscape interspersed by ditched enclosures and ceremonial and community gathering centres built throughout the Neolithic and Copper Age.
With Perdigões (Reguengos de Monsaraz) as a starting point, this itinerary proposes two touring routes, one to the north and the other to the south. Using geophysical and aerial images and the supporting information provided, you can ‘visit’ the plans of these remarkable contexts (today mostly buried and invisible) at each site. You may link them to the topography and landscape they meaningfully integrate, learn about the data obtained by archaeology for each case, and grasp the simultaneous diversity and unity that characterise these phenomena, which reflect an ancestral way of looking at and being in the world.
To the north, travelling through Central Alentejo and part of Alto Alentejo, the route begins at the Perdigões exhibition in Torre da Herdade do Esporão with a visit to the Perdigões enclosure. It then goes through Montoito (Montoito enclosure), Alandroal, Juromenha (Juromenha enclosure), Elvas, Campo Maior (Santa Vitória and Monte da Contenda enclosures), Santa Eulália/Barbacena (Torrão enclosure), ending in Cano, Sousel (Rouca 7 enclosure). The itinerary is around 190 kilometres.
To the south, also beginning at Perdigões, the route leads you to Monte do Trigo (Trigo enclosure) before crossing Serra de Portel and entering the Baixo Alentejo region. There, you will continue through Cuba (Xancra enclosure) and Beringel (Bela Vista 5 enclosure), then on to the left bank of the Guadiana River where, in the municipality of Serpa, you may visit the São Brás 3, Folha do Ouro, Borralhos, Monte da Laje and Outeiro Alto enclosures on a circular circuit. It is a journey of around 210 kilometres.