Necropolis of La Cabrera
Hispano-Visigothic rural cemetery
Description of the deposit
It is located at kilometer 3 of the road that connects La Cabrera with Valdemanco, at the foot of Cerro de la Cabeza, where there was a settlement whose inhabitants used this necropolis to bury their deceased. In the area, vestiges of settlement have also been documented, ranging from Recent Prehistory to the Middle Ages. In the XNUMXth century the Benedictine monks settled in this area, who founded the monastery of San Antonio de La Cabrera, later occupied by the Franciscan order.
The archaeological excavation carried out at the site in 1991 made it possible to document the three tombs that were already known and discover six more. It is a necropolis from the Hispano-Visigothic period composed of cists, that is, funerary structures formed by flat rocks of local origin placed vertically forming rectangular boxes that were covered by one or more stones as a lid. Some tombs seem to form family groupings, in the manner of pantheons.
The corpses were placed inside the cists in a supine position. The skeletal remains discovered during the excavation were looted and poorly preserved. No items of trousseau have been found, except for a Byzantine-style belt clasp from tomb VII that allowed the set to be dated to the XNUMXth century.
The so-called "Tumba del Moro" is an anthropomorphic tomb excavated in a granite outcrop with the head facing west. It has a length of 1,80 meters and a maximum width of 0,54 meters, tapering towards the feet. This grave had been looted in ancient times and had lost its cover, probably also made from a block of local stone. This anthropomorphic burial was probably executed around the XNUMXth - XNUMXth centuries.
Archaeological performance
In 1991 an emergency excavation was carried out since the site, popularly known as "The tomb of the Moro", was being looted. In 2016, a geophysical prospecting with georadar was carried out, completing the works with the fencing and sealing of the deposit. In 2017, the General Directorate for Heritage decided to include the site in the Network of Visitable Sites of the Community of Madrid, entrusting the Department of Archeology and Cultural Resources of the company AUDEMA with its conditioning and enhancement.
