Segóbriga archaeological Park is situated 10 km from Uclés, in Saelices, in the province of Cuenca, next to the A -3 motorway Madrid - Valencia - Alicante. The park has uncovered the value of the most monumental Roman Town in the Plain and the best preserved in the West Roman Empire.

Segóbriga is settled on a knoll which is 857 metres high. It is protected in the South by the Giguela River, tributary to the Guadiana River and which works as a natural ditch. This higher site has a surface of 10.5 ha and is a typical settlement from the Iron Age.
Segóbriga always was an important crossroads as well as an important farming centre. It was initially a Celtiberian camp. After the Roman Conquest at the beginning of the 2nd century b. c. Segóbriga became an “oppidum” or Celtiberian city, possibly mentioned for the first time in Viriato’s fights towards the year 140 b. c.

The new constructions in the city continued at good pace throughout the 1st and 2nd centuries a. d. A theatre, an amphitheatre a basilica, archways and public baths were built.
In Visigoth times the town moved three kilometres towards the North, where Saelices is now, near the spring of the Roman aqueduct of the old Segobriga. That place was then called “Cabeza del Griego” and was reduced to a little hamlet belonging to Uclés, whose magnificent convent- fortress is situated just 10 kilometres from Segóbriga. A gradual depopulation took place and its ruins became the quarry for the buildings nearby, especially for the construction of the monastery of Uclés between the 16th and 18th century which added to its destruction. However, the findings taken place, especially the inscriptions discovered, fed the interest for the archaeological site, which has been studied by the Royal Academy of History since the 16th century. That is why Segóbriga can be regarded as one of the archaeological sites with a longer tradition in the research carried out in the History of the Spanish Archaeology.

 

Más información sobre Segobriga:
www.jccm.es/cultura/parques/segobriga