Ruins of Ciutat ibèrica d'Ullastret

17114 Puig de Sant Andreu, Ullastret, Girona
Coordinates: 42.0059010000, 3.0794940000 (map)

The ancient Greeks began actively expanding trade and seeking to ease overpopulation in their cities in the 8th century B.C., which meant colonizing the Mediterranean part of the Iberian peninsula. The land obviously hadn't been empty when they arrived. Ancient records mentioning the Iberians, the people native to the territory, used the name as an umbrella term for tens of different tribes and peoples inhabiting the territories that today cover about the third of modern Spain.

The Iberians aren't the sole ancestors of modern Spaniards. Even though the Iberian peninsula is called just that, the lands of the Iberians really only included Catalonia, Valencia, and Andalucia of today. As mentioned already, it was not one homogenous group: what the Iberians shared in culture, language and writing they got from the Greek and Phoenician peoples who colonized them.

The history of the Iberian civilization covers 4 distinct periods:

1. Pre-Iberian period (650-550 B.C.)
The time of change in the Iberians' way of life; the Bronze Age giving way to the Iron Age. The human leaves the cave and moves into a clay hut.

2. Ancient Iberian period (550-450 B.C.)
The Iberians begin building houses from stone, with rectangular foundations, and surround their settlements with fortress walls. They learn ceramics and metallurgy from the Greeks and Phoenicians.

3. Middle Iberian period (450-200 B.C.)
The prime of the Iberian civilization with the improved quality of life, population growth, and larger cities being converted to unpenetrable fortresses. The period of active trade with the colonizers, manufacturing of weapons, advancement of the art of ceramics.

4. Late Iberian period (after 200 B.C.)
After conquering the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.), the Romans had settled in the Iberian peninsula permanently. The Iberians lost control over their cities and gradually abandoned them, eventually blending into and disappearing among the colonizers old and new.

The lands of the Girona province during the Iberian epoch were inhabited by the Indigetes. The marks of their intelligent presence are scattered across the whole province, but the most important archeological finding is, without a doubt, El poblat ibèric d'Ullastret, the ruins of an ancient town close to the pueblo Ullastret, the biggest in Catalonia not only in terms of size but in the number of artifacts it contained.

The Iberian Ullastret encompasses two settlements on the hills of Puig de Sant Andreu and Illa d'en Reixac, and a necropolis on the hill Puig de Serra of the municipality Serra de Daró. That treasures were buried in Puig de Sant Andreu was already well-known back in the 19th century, but the first scientific journals to mention it did so only in 1931. The actual digging could only begin 16 years later, after the end of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War. Later, in the 1960s, another settlement area was discovered on Illa d'en Reixa, some 400 meters northeast of Puig de Sant Andreu. In 1982, a necropolis was uncovered on Puig de Serra, a kilometre away from Puig de Sant Andreu.

The settlement of Puig de Sant Andreu is the only one currently open to the public. The digging area covers 23 hectares, a rectangle of 600 by 380 meters. The list of uncovered artifacts that have been dug up already is vast:
- 930 meters of the fortress wall ruins;
- 7 towers connecting the fortress walls;
- numerous homes, the location of which allows for the understanding of the town plan, and whose contents tell stories of the Indigetes' everyday lives;
- 2 religious temples with columns;
- over 200 storage pits for grains;
- 3 cisterns for drinking water collection, similar to those discovered in the ruins of Empúries.

A museum was opened in 1961 to showcase all the discoveries from Puig de Sant Andreu atop the very same hill. The museum has three rooms: the first details the Iberian history, describing trade, currency, religion, and rituals; the second is dedicated to architecture and urbanism; the third illustrates the everyday lives of the Iberians, including agriculture, livestock breeding, hunting, fishing, metallurgy, ceramics and fabrics manufacturing. The museum also has examples of the Iberian writing.

Visitor information

Address: Puig de Sant Andreu, Ullastret
Phone: +34 972 179 058

Opening times:
01/06-30/09 and during Holy Week: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00 am to 8:00 pm
01/10-31/05: Tuesday-Sunday 10:00 am to 2:00 pm and 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm
December 24 and December 31: 10:00 am to 2:30 pm
Closed on December 25-26 and January 1 and 6.

The closest train station is Girona.