The Roman legion that left its mark on León

The Murallas de León is a Roman fortification dating back to the 1st century. The Legio VI was established there to control the Astur population of the area, and the Legio VII rebuilt the walls in stone in 74 AD. During the Augustan era, the camp was located in a strategic position between the mountains and the plateau, at 840 meters above sea level. The rectangular camp measured 570 meters long and 350 meters wide, covering a surface of more than 20 hectares.

Excavations revealed a stone wall surrounding the camp space, rectangular with rounded corners and a gate on each side. The thickness of the defenses varied between 180 and 200 cm, reinforced by square towers that projected slightly into the interior. The construction process for the high-imperial wall involved the use of opus vittatum, made of sandstone and mortar, while the core of the wall was made of opus caementicium, growing to 6 meters wide and 4.25 meters high during the Legio VII construction.

The initial defensive structure consisted of a series of three elements: ditches, the wall itself, and an earth bank attached to the inner face of the wall. By the 3rd and 4th centuries, a general reinforcement was undertaken, adding a thick sheet of approximately 5 meters in thickness and semicircular flanking towers. Later, in 1324, a medieval stone fence was built to replace the earth fence protecting the surrounding settlement, leaving parts of the late Roman wall intact as different constructions were attached to it over time.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons