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24-630: There is an archaeological site at Tolmo de Minateda hill near Hellín, with phases of Iberian , Roman and Visigoth occupation. There are archaeological evidences suggesting that the Minateda site may have stood at some point at the Byzantine side of the limes . A tentative identification with the Iyih mentioned in the Pact of Theodemir has been also proposed. Minateda was thus probably known as Madinat Iyyuh during

48-522: A small entity, until their abandonment in the middle of the 20th century. As part of the Tolmo de Minateda project, the restoration of the best preserved houses has begun. To the north of the hill are visible vestiges of staggered funerary monuments from the Roman-Republican period, made of ashlar or adobe. Inside was the urn with the ashes of the deceased, along with his trousseau. Above this, levels from

72-492: A son, Athanagild, who was described as very wealthy by the Chronicle , but whether or not he was his successor is debated by scholars. If he did succeed, he would have done so around 740, but his fate is unknown and the region of Tudmir had lost its independence by the 780s. In the historical novel Amaya o los vascos en el siglo VIII (1879), the characters mention Teodomiro "duke of Aurariola and Baetica, general prevost of

96-478: A tribute per capita and to turn over any enemies of the conquerors to the government. The tribute consisted of one dinar , four measures (or jugfuls) each of wheat, barley, grape juice, and vinegar, plus two of honey and oil; and half this for slaves. Theudimer retained his land and his local authority. Theudimer later travelled to Damascus to have his treaty confirmed by the Umayyad Caliph. However, it

120-512: Is unknown how long this treaty lasted in practice, whether it continued until Theudimer's death (which is recorded in the Chronicle of 754 ) or after, or was cut short before his death. His prominence in the region is testified by the number of later Gothic nobles in the same region who tried to claim descent from him. The region itself was given the commemorative name Tudmir by the Arabs. Theudimer left

144-573: The Arabs ) and not an attempt to reestablish the province of Spania , lost in the 620s. As E. A. Thompson states, "We know nothing whatever of the context of this strange event." After the defeat of king Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete in 711 or 712, Theudimer resisted the invading Arabs, but he was eventually defeated in pitched battle and made peace with the Muslim emir Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa . "The text of

168-568: The Iberians and Romans . In the year 9 B.C., the city reached the rank of municipality, probably under the name of Ilunum. However, from the middle of the 2nd century it gradually declined to the benefit of the villas in the valley. The present-day Minateda did not recover until the 6th century, during Justinian 's attempt to restore the Western Roman Empire . After the reestablishment of Visigothic control, an episcopal see arose here under

192-635: The Junta of Communities of Castilla–La Mancha . 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). A branch of this road passes through

216-500: The thalweg that leads to the tolmo , known by the name of El Reguerón and that presents deep furrows carved by the wheels of the carts, since for millennia it constituted the only access road to the hill. The strategic position of the tolmo allowed it to be inhabited uninterruptedly for more than 3,000 years, from the Bronze Age until the Islamic occupation. Its emergence came with

240-643: The Imperial period were documented, with cremation graves in urns deposited in open pits in the ground. Later a burial necropolis was located on the site, in use from the late Roman to the Islamic period. In the same cemetery Christian and Islamic burials converged, something rarely found in other places. 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. This involved consolidation and improvement works on

264-451: The Islamic period. The Arabic name of Hellín was however Falyān , which eventually evolved into 'Felín', and then 'Hellín'. The importance of the Sulfur -rich mining district in the south of the municipality led to the creation of a mining community in the area (Las Minas), that became a leading producer of sulfur in southwestern Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. Railway arrived to

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288-421: The church must have soon lost its religious character. Its place was occupied by an Islamic quarter until the end of the 9th century when the city was definitively abandoned. From then on the place became known as Madīnat Iyyuh (Arabic adaptation of Eio), the name from which the present-day Minateda derives. The importance of the hill in antiquity began to be glimpsed in the 19th century, but it has not been until

312-464: The city of the municipal statute, probably with the name of Ilunum . 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. In the 6th century, the remains of this wall were used in

336-464: The construction of a forward bastion in the shape of an L, with a vaulted gate flanked by two towers. Its northern corner crumbled over the road, rendering it useless. In the upper part of the site, a religious and palatial complex from the Visigothic period was excavated. The main building is a basilica with three naves separated by columns, with an apse at the head and a tripartite baptistery at

360-413: The foot. Attached to its north side, a building of large dimensions and monumental structure seems to had functions of representation, administration and residence. It is possible that it is the palace of the seat of Elo or Eio, created between 589 and 610 to administer the part of the diocese of Ilici that remained in Visigothic hands, since the rest was in the hands of Byzantium . Around the complex there

384-532: The joint reign of Egica and Wittiza , a Byzantine fleet raided the coasts of southern Iberia and was driven off by Theudimer. The dating of this event is disputed: it may have occurred as part of Leontios' expedition to relieve Carthage , under assault by the Arabs , in 697; perhaps later, around 702; or perhaps late in Wittiza's reign. What is almost universally accepted is that it was an isolated incident connected with other military activities (probably against

408-412: The last three decades that the excavation of its ruins has intensified. At the entrance to the site, excavations have uncovered three defensive structures. 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 . In Augustan times it was covered with an ashlar wall to commemorate the granting to

432-513: The name of Eio, whose bishops signed in the conciliar acts as "ilicitanae, qui et eiotanae"; this allusion to Ilici ( La Alcudia , Elche ) would imply some kind of dependence on the then powerful bishop of this city. 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 . It maintained its existence for almost two hundred years, although

456-778: The processions and the traditional tamborada (drumming), declared of international tourist interest, occur during the Holy Week (in Spanish, Semana Santa ). Tolmo de Minateda The Tolmo de Minateda is an archaeological site located in Hellín ( Albacete , Spain ) excavated since 1988 by a joint team from the University of Alicante and the Albacete Provincial Museum , directed by Jose Antonio Simarro, Sol colita, Blanca Gamo and Pablo Cánovas, with funding and authorization from

480-639: The southeast of Carthaginensis (the region around Murcia ) during the last decades of the Visigothic kingdom and for several years after the Arab conquest . He ruled seven cities in southeastern Spain, mentioned in the Treaty of Orihuela that was preserved by the Andalusian historian Ibn Adarí in the thirteenth century: Orihuela , Valentila (possibly an equivalent for Valencia ), Alicante , Mula , Bigastro , Eyya (probably Ojós ), and Lorca . Sometime probably during

504-434: The structures, the adaptation of two visitable circuits and the construction of an interpretation center. The project was fully completed in early 2011 and was finally opened to the public on March 4, 2019. 38°28′35″N 1°36′21″W  /  38.4763°N 1.6059°W  / 38.4763; -1.6059 Theodemir (Visigoth) Theodemir or Theudimer (died 743) was a Visigothic comes (count) prominent in

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528-648: The town in 1864, with the opening of the Chinchilla –Hellín stretch on 18 January and the Hellín– Agramón  [ es ] stretch on 8 October. Hellín was granted the title of city ( ciudad ) in 1898. Esparto cultivation increased in the first decades of the 20th century, peaking in importance during the Autarky period of the Francoist dictatorship , with the expansion of irrigated crops . Main celebrations, such as

552-461: The treaty he signed has been preserved in at least three separate sources, including a fourteenth-century biographical dictionary, and is dated to 5 April 713 ( 4 Recheb 94 AH )." The treaty allowed that Christians who submitted to Muslim rule ("the patronage of God") would be spared their lives and allowed to continue living with their families according to their mores and practising their Catholic faith in their churches, but they were required to pay

576-458: 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. At the end of the 19th century, the slopes were populated by semi-rural houses that came to form

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