Santuario Ibérico del Collado de los Jardines

23213, Santa Elena How to get

Located in the area that could have been passing through (although not surely one of the most important before the 18th century) between Alta Andalucía and the Meseta, is this Sanctuary of which practically the only thing that is known are its bronze votive offerings (about 2,200 from official excavations) that the Oretan peoples offered to the gods

The original place of worship would consist of a cave in the rocky massif and a fountain; in front of that one it is possible that successive cult buildings arose at different times; for the oldest, news of its rectangular plan is preserved, and a chronology of the 5th-4th centuries BC is suspected; for the most recent the managed dating would place it in the 1st century or maybe earlier; The cave sanctuary would already function before the construction of the first building and would continue to do so, at least until the 4th century, after the destruction of the second building around the 3rd century AD. Apparently, the votive offerings, mostly or entirely bronze figures, "Furent primitivement dépossées dans la caverne, et jetées de temps á autre sur la pente, mais jamais aucune fosse ne fut creusée pour les recevoir", which it prevents the existence of a reliable strategy, a fact that is aggravated by the precarious conditions of the excavation, at the beginning of the century, of the site. It is not improbable, as one of the excavators suggested, that the religious complex was also completed by a sacred forest, from whose branches the devotees would hang part of the offerings.