The Roman Church of Bellver de Cerdanya buries its past

Standing tall in the Spanish Pyrenean village of Bellver de Cerdanya, the Roman Church of Sant Martí de Vilavedra hides a thousand years of history beneath its stone walls. Constructed in the 13th century, the church you can see today is built on an older, 11th century church - an earlier one that's literally buried beneath the current building. Sant Martí de Vilavedra has been a part of the small town of Bellver de Cerdanya since the 11th century, with its official first mention found in the 839 Acta de Consagració de Santa Maria de la Seu d'Urgell.

It was during the excavation of 1997 that the hidden past of this church came to light. When the archaeologists dug up the site, they found eight infant graves beneath the pavement, covered with trodden earth mixed with lime. Fragments of 12th century murals with ornamental motifs were also discovered. The construction stages can still be seen today, a clue to a story that remains unfinished. Sant Martí de Vilavedra is part of the Inventari del Patrimoni Arquitectònic de Catalunya, a list of protected architectural landmarks in Catalonia, Spain.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata