The Tower of Hercules (, ) is the oldest known extant Roman lighthouse. Built in the 1st century, the tower is located on a peninsula about from the centre of A Coruña, Galicia, in northwestern Spain. Until the 20th century, it was known as the Farum Brigantium. The Tower of Hercules is a National Monument of Spain and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 27 June 2009. It is the second-tallest lighthouse in Spain, after the Faro de Chipiona.

Construction and history

thumb|upright|left|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) by the Emperor 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 , 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 probably topped with a dome.

The earliest known reference to the lighthouse at Brigantium is by Paulus Orosius in , written around 415–417:

:

:("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.")

thumb|upright|left|Plan and elevation, from Joseph Cornide, , 1792

In 1788, the surviving tower core was given a neoclassical restoration, including a new fourth storey.

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. and helped to perpetuate the legend that the lighthouse had been built by Julius Caesar perhaps due to a misreading of the ancient inscription.

Possible locations of Brigantia

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

Early geographical descriptions of Brigantia point out that the town's location could either be A Coruña or alternatively some 26 kilometres away, where the town of Betanzos now sits. The people of Betanzos claim it as a fact that Betanzos is "the former city of Brigancia" until the 17th century, both in literary accounts as well as in maps, and they also believe that the name Betanzos is a phonetic evolution from Brigantium > Breganzo > Betanzos. The proponents of the A Coruña tradition and others suggest, however, that this is 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 on a relatively small river) was far too small for Roman warships to dock at; Julius Caesar, for example, is said to have visited this area 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, 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.

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File:Escudo de A Coruña.svg|The Tower of Hercules in the coat of arms of Corunna

File:Maregeo coruna2.jpg|Oil tanker Aegean Sea burning behind the Tower of Hercules in 1992

File:Torre de Hércules, La Coruña, España, 2015-09-25, DD 35-37 HDR.jpg|View of the tower and its surroundings.

File:Tower of Hercules in A Coruña.jpg|View of Torre de Hercules from the street.

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See also

  • Roman architecture
  • Roman engineering
  • Roman technology
  • List of Roman sites in Spain
  • List of World Heritage Sites in Spain
  • List of lighthouses in Spain

References

;Specific references:

;General references:

  • "Documentos para estudiar la Torre de Hércules" (in Spanish)
  • Mareblucamogli.com
  • Tower of Hercules from Spain.info
  • Torre de Hércules (in English) from the Universidade da Coruña website
  • Tower of Hercules Visitor Services and Interpretive Center (in English)
  • Torre photo
  • Official website
  • Images of the Roman Tower of Hercules and futuristic visual legends
  • Historical timeline of the Tower of Brigantia, from galicianflag.com