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The Astronomical Orientation of the Iberian Cave-Sanctuary of Cueva Santa Del Cabriel in Spain

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The Astronomical Orientation of the Iberian Cave-Sanctuary of Cueva Santa Del Cabriel in Spain RESEARCH ARTICLE Enduring Sacred Places: The Astronomical Orientation of the Iberian Cave-Sanctuary of Cueva Santa del Cabriel in Spain Sonia Machause López Departament de Prehistòria, Arqueologia i Història Antiga, Universitat de València [email protected] [email protected] César Esteban Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain [email protected] Fernando Moya Muñoz Official Chronicler of Fuenterrobles, Valencia, Spain Abstract: This paper presents the results of an archaeoastronomical study of the Iberian Iron Age cave-sanctuary of Cueva Santa del Cabriel, near the town of Mira in the province of Cuenca, Castilla-La Mancha, central Spain, together with a review of the latest archaeological and ethno- graphical data about the site. We found that the cave’s 12 m-long access corridor is oriented precisely along the summer solstice sunset, so that the north wall of the main gallery is partially illuminated by sunlight at this time. Although the cave was in use from the Late Chalcolithic, it became an important religious centre in the Iberian period. After an apparent hiatus during the Roman and Islamic occupations, its ritual use was re-established with the Christian Reconquista, especially from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and it is now dedicated to the worship of the Virgin Mary. Popular pilgrimages to the cave have continued until the present day. The characteristics of modern traditions related to the cave can, however, be of great value in under- standing ancient Iberian ritual practices. Keywords: archaeoastronomy; Iron Age; ritual pilgrimage; sacred cave; solstice orientation JSA 5.1 (2019) 56–78 ISSN (print) 2055-348X https://doi.org/10.1558/jsa.36707 ISSN (online) 2055-3498 Enduring Sacred Places 57 Introduction Iberian Cave-Sanctuaries and Astronomy Caves have been regarded as places of symbolic importance from prehistory to the present day (Bonsall and Tolan-Smith 1997; Bradley 2002; Brady and Prufer 2005; Ustinova 2009; Bergsvik and Skeates 2012; Moyes 2012; Faro 2013; Dowd 2015). During the Iberian Iron Age (sixth to first century BC), some such caves became ritual sites, and the docu- mentation of this phenomenon along the Mediterranean coast of Spain is progressively bringing to light complex ritual contexts that demonstrate regional and cultural variation (Rueda 2011; Grau and Amorós 2013; Machause et al. 2014; López-Bertran 2015; Machause 2017; Machause et al. 2017). Ritual caves in this region contain an array of material culture, including ceramics and metals, as well as charcoal and faunal and human remains. The power of the underground has been an inspiration for ritual practitioners over the centu- ries. In fact, the sanctity of these caves and their territories is still evident in some cases, and they are still used for traditional ceremonies. Most of the caves interpreted as Iberian rock sanctuaries have their entrances open to the west (Ocharan 2017, 85), and this contrasts with the common eastward orientation of the Iberian temples or open-air sanctuaries (Esteban 2013; 2015). The different general orientation of these sacred sites suggests differences in the character of the rituals taking place in them. Although archaeoastronomical studies of Iberian cave-sanctuaries are still very few, and of rather limited statistical significance, they indicate that illumination phenomena occurred at sunset inside the caves at certain points in the solar calendar. Esteban et al. (2014) presented a study on the orientation of the cave-sanctuary Cueva de la Lobera, near the town of Castellar, in the southern Spanish province of Jaén, Andalusia. These authors found that the innermost part of the cavity, a kind of natural niche, is illuminated at sunset around the equinoxes and that the shapes of the niche and the area lit by the Sun seem to fit more closely at the precise date of the half-way point between the solstices. The Sun’s rays enter through an opening at the western end of the cave, from which the horizon can be seen. There are also indications that the opening has been reworked at some point (Nicolini et al. 2004, 151). Another feature suggestive of this solar phenomenon is that the shape of the sunlit area at the moments before sunset recalls the profile of some of the ex-voto offerings at Castellar and other Iberian sanctuaries, which represent a typical female figure that has been interpreted as an Iberian goddess. Esteban et al. (2014) discuss this interesting idea and propose that, at Cueva de la Lobera, the Iberians may have attempted to present a visual representation of the divinity as part of the ritual. Another remarkable phenomenon is reported by Esteban and Ocharan (2016) at the Iberian cave-sanctuary of Cueva de la Nariz (also known as Umbría de Salchite), located in Moratalla in the province of Murcia, southeastern Spain. This cave has a strikingly symmetrical morphology, with two parallel galleries of very similar dimensions. It is located on the western slope of a mountain known as Calar de la Cueva de la Capilla, in an area where access is difficult. Both cavities contain a spring and a carved basin to collect water in their innermost areas, and Esteban and Ocharan directly observed that sunlight illuminates the basin in the northern cavity just a few minutes before winter © 2019 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD 58 Sonia Machause López, César Esteban and Fernando Moya Muñoz solstice sunset. Moreover, in the last moments of sunset the reddish spot of sunlight fits the shape of the basin and the canals carved in the rock. Especially interesting is the tangential illumination of the water contained in the basin by the last sunrays of the day. Esteban and colleagues (Esteban et al. 2014; Esteban and Ocharan 2016) have proposed that the natural orientation towards sunset at significant dates in the solar calendar was at least one of the features that gave Cueva de la Nariz and Cueva de la Lobera their sacred character. In addition, the alteration of parts of the caves in order to provide better alignment with the pool of sunlight at sunset suggests an eagerness to create a liminal atmosphere in the sanctuaries, and perhaps even a dramatisation of the sacred experience: elements that would greatly enhance the sacred and symbolic character of the caves. Cueva Santa del Cabriel Cueva Santa del Cabriel is located along the course of the River Cabriel, about 860 m asl. The entrance (Figure 1), oriented to the northwest, was reshaped at the end of the eighteenth century AD to facilitate access to the cave (Moya 1998, 30). The main gallery is 30 m wide and 10 m tall and contains many stalactites and stalagmites. It also has columns and a basin (Gallery A) and can be entered via a long corridor (Figure 2). Unfortunately, explosives used in Gallery A in the 1970s destroyed not only the majority of the karst formations, but also the sediments and stratigraphy. In two other galleries connected to Gallery A – Galleries B and C – the majority of the archaeological artefacts were found on the surface, due to the use of explosives in Gallery A (Lorrio et al. 2006) (Figure 2). FIGURE 1: Cueva Santa del Cabriel: (1) location (2) entrance of the cave (photograph by one of the authors). © 2019 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD Enduring Sacred Places 59 FIGURE 2: Plan of Cueva Santa del Cabriel (based on Lorrio et al. 2006: fig. 2), with Points 1 and 2 noted. The red circles indicate the position of the points from where the orientation measurements were taken. The black arrows indicate the slope direction and the square outlining Gallery C marks the area where the archaeological prospection was made in 2003. Although the cave has not been excavated, artefacts collected during surveys demon- strate the ritual use of this space since prehistoric times (Lorrio et al. 2006), while recent analyses of the cave have further confirmed that it was the scene of ritual activity during the Iberian Iron Age (Machause 2017). Cueva Santa del Cabriel is an excellent example of ritual continuity at different periods, for different people with different cultures and beliefs, and it is today a site of Christian pilgrimage. One tradition that once involved every village around this sacred site is today maintained only by Fuenterrobles, a small © 2019 EQUINOX PUBLISHING LTD 60 Sonia Machause López, César Esteban and Fernando Moya Muñoz settlement about 15 km from the cave in the province of València (Moya 1998): this is when the people of this village come to the cave on the second Sunday of May to give offerings to the Virgin of the Cave, to request her blessings and to ask for her protection for the harvest. According to Lorrio et al. (2006), the cave’s orientation facing the sunset is one of the features that defines the sacred character of Cueva Santa del Cabriel. However, observa- tions from the interior of the cave have ruled out the theory that the corridor was aligned towards the sunset around the dates of the present-day pilgrimages to the cave in May. Fernando Moya and José Ángel Jesús María took photographs at sunset during the summer solstices of 2008 and 2010, recording the striking illumination of certain parts of the interior of the cave. We carried out archaeoastronomical fieldwork at the cave on 17th May, 2017. In this paper, we discuss the theory that the astronomical orientation of the entrance corridor of the cave-sanctuary of Cueva Santa del Cabriel may have played an important role in the ritual practices of the Iberian Iron Age. In the next section, we present the archaeological importance of the cave, focusing on Iberian ritual practices, and in the third and fourth sections we present the methodology followed in our astronomical study, together with the results we obtained.
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