Cámara Sepulcral Ibérica de Toya
Monument
Centro de interpretación Tumbas pincipescas Toya y Hornos. Peal de Becerro 23460, Peal de Becerro
How to get
In the vicinity of the village of Toya, in 1909, a neighbor of Peal de Becerro nicknamed El Pernazas discovered some large stones while working the land. He couldn't imagine what he was going to discover behind those big slabs. He had discovered the tomb of a rich Iberian aristocrat so he ran to notify his family to enter the grave and recover the treasures that had been hidden for 2,300 years. He recovered some vessels and ornaments that were soon sold out in the village. By the time the camera and its furnishings were documented, it was too late, as it had been repeatedly looted.
The tomb is structured in three rooms and inside you can still see benches and poyetes to deposit the urns and grave goods. In total, the chamber has about 12 square meters and is made of large ashlars covered by a structure of large pieces of stone.
As for its content, little was preserved after the initial looting, although there were Greek pottery, weapons and a chariot. From here we can reconstruct the moment when the Iberian warrior was cremated and his ashes were introduced into the tomb.
During the V-IV century B.C.E. There are in the province of Jaén several oppida, fortified towns of which we have close examples in Castellones de Ceal (Hinojares) and in Bujalamé, (La Puerta de Segura). Along with these large settlements there were other smaller settlements and they had were under the control of these large settlements. We can imagine the moment in which the aristocrat was cremated on the pyre, his servants would introduce the Greek ceramics into the tomb with the offerings, weapons, and other metallic elements as a sign of prestige and even his war chariot. Along with the pyre they would be sent from the different settlements as a sign of submission towards that aristocratic elite that represented the great oppida of the area.
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