crucero del santo cristo in molinaseca

[caminka]

years back, I came across an article about an excavation beneath this (more) modern cross at the end of calle real in molinaseca. the article said that beneath the cross a monolith (possibly a menhir) was buried. this would probably be a unique definite reference of a cross replacing an earlier road/route marker, and on top of that, on the camino francés no less. I would love to see that article again, or some other reference to this excavation. if I remember correctly, the article was a skan/jpg? and part of a blog? it probably came from a local newspaper or magazine. the picture(s) were in colour. this time I have had no luck finding it or any other info. anyone came across something similar? @Kathar1na perhaps, who has an incredible nose for finding obscure stuff on the net? @VNwalking, who I know has interest in such prehistoric stuff?

 

[Kathor1]

I would love to see that article again, or some other reference to this excavation. if I remember correctly, the article was a skan/jpg? and part of a blog? it probably came from a local newspaper or magazine. the picture(s) were in colour. this time I have had no luck finding it or any other info. anyone came across something similar?

Your questions are too hard, @caminka ☺. I was idly thinking about this and wondered whether there was an actual excavation or rather some kind of discovery made when they put in the paving stones for the plaza and surrounding streets. I found an older photo of the crucero, see below. I myself don't even recall seeing the cross (nor the massive peregrino sculpture next to it on the other side of the street) when leaving Molinaseca.


Source: https://www.molinaseca.info; Google Street view.

 

[caminka]

Your questions are too hard, @caminka ☺.

for the easy questions I don't need to bother a forum full of experts.

I was idly thinking about this and wondered whether there was an actual excavation or rather some kind of discovery made when they put in the paving stones for the plaza and surrounding streets. I found an older photo of the crucero, see below.

it could quite possibly be a replacement of the paving stones or the redoing of the street or maybe even refurbishing or repositioning (for a few meters) of the cross - this is based on the old picture you posted. it seems to me that the cross used to stand more in the middle of the street then.

 

[KinkyOne]

...
it could quite possibly be a replacement of the paving stones or the redoing of the street or maybe even refurbishing or repositioning (for a few meters) of the cross - this is based on the old picture you posted. it seems to me that the cross used to stand more in the middle of the street then.

I don't think so. The street is on the left of cruceiro on the first photo and on the right side on the second one and that is misleading. If you look at the houses on the left first two are exactly the same as they were but the first house on the righthand side clearly got another floor. And together with change of perspective that change could very much interfere with perception of the place.

If you look very closely it almost looks like right now the cruceiro is more to the street than it was. But I'm sure that's because of the added storey to the house on the righthand side or maybe even when renovating it they kind of "shorten" its dimension horizontally in relation to the street.

Of course just a speculation but I've done this kind of comparison many times in my line of work. For really adequate comparison one would have to take exactly the same standpoint as in first photo and find the same focal length

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

For recent positioning you could check Google Streetview which has a way to select between dates when they passed by.

 

[Kathor1]

For really adequate comparison one would have to take exactly the same standpoint as in first photo and find the same focal length

The cross is positioned in a small open space between two roads, the Calle Real and the Calle Iglesia. And as you say, because of the different angles/viewpoints, it is hard to tell whether it ever changed position when looking at older photos. But there were definitely roadworks in Molinaseca. A b&w photo from 1939 shows this quite clearly. I had hoped info about these works would yield something about the cross but no luck so far. Note the typical slabs of stone on the right side that you also find on some of the countryside trails along the Camino Frances in Galicia in particular.

Main camino road through Molinaseca, year 1939 versus year 20xx:

 

[KinkyOne]

The cross is positioned right between two roads, the Calle Real and the Calle de Iglesia. And as you say, because of the different angles/viewpoints, it is hard to tell whether it ever changed position when looking at older photos. But there were definitely roadworks in Molinaseca, including around the cross. A b&w photo from 1939 shows this quite clearly. I had hoped info about these works would yield something about the cross but no luck so far. Note the typical slabs of stone on the right side that you also find on some of the countryside trails along the Camino Frances in Galicia in particular.

Main camino road through Molinaseca, year 1939 versus year 20xx:

View attachment 80224

The roadworks (pavement) were already clearly seen in your first post. Nothing unusual in time span of 100, 50 or even 20 years

 

[Kathor1]

The roadworks (pavement) were already clearly seen in your first post. Nothing unusual in time span of 100, 50 or even 20 years

I had to find a reason for posting the photo from 1939 which turned up while searching for info about the cross and which I find quite intriguing. ☺

 

[VNwalking]

I am no help here, and as @Kathar1na says, this is quite a challenge.
But I found something else that's very interesting that I am very sorry to have missed the second time I went through Molinaseca (the first time it was not there)...it's worth another thread.

 

[Kathor1]

I found something else that's very interesting that I am very sorry to have missed the second time I went through Molinaseca (the first time it was not there)...it's worth another thread.

Let me guess ... ... ... ... I didn't know about it either when we walked through Molinaseca ... that's the problem with using a Complete Cultural Handbook for the Pilgrimage Road to Santiago that, excellent as it is, was written before the year 2000 and doesn't know anything about any of the good stuff that was discovered later or placed there later.

 

[caminka]

I don't think so. The street is on the left of cruceiro on the first photo and on the righ side on the second one and that is misleading. If you look at the houses on the left first two are exactly the same as they were but the first house on the righthand side clearly got another floor. And together with change of perspective that change could very much interfere with perception of the place.

I was thinking particularly of the cross in the relation to the first building on the left, nicely illuminated in the sun on the old photo. it looked that, if you moved a bit to the right with the google, the angle at which that house is captured could be a bit different then the angle in the old photo. but it was just a guess, of course.

 

[caminka]

But there were definitely roadworks in Molinaseca. A b&w photo from 1939 shows this quite clearly. I had hoped info about these works would yield something about the cross but no luck so far. Note the typical slabs of stone on the right side that you also find on some of the countryside trails along the Camino Frances in Galicia in particular.

assuming I remember correctly, it was more recent 'excavation', perhaps in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s.

 

[Kathor1]

but it was just a guess, of course

I found another old photo, date unknown to me, and it does look as if the cross has not been repositioned in recent years:

 

[caminka]

another view of the cross from a different angle, on a photo from 1939.

 

[Kathor1]

assuming I remember correctly, it was more recent 'excavation', perhaps in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s.

I tried various approaches via Google searches but I came up with nothing, and as it is in Spanish, it's also not easy for me to think of promising search terms. I had a look at Molinaseca.es and Molinaseca.info, and two names came up of local men with an interest in local history so depending on how keen you are to pursue this, it might be worth a try to contact them. They are both on Facebook it seems: Rogelio Meléndez Tercero and Alberto Morán Luna. The cross is also known as the Veijo Crucero but you probably know this anyway.

The following three photos show the pavement, or lack thereof, around the cross: in 1939 - pounded earth; sometime later (the photo reminds me of the 1960s and 1970s) with large stone slabs all around the foot of the cross; and currently, with some of the stone slabs in place and a fancy pattern of smaller granite stones. Around 2005, the road from the bridge to the cross was modernised or "urbanised", for a total of 600,000 €: removal of current paving, modernisation of water and sewage network, street lights, and laying of the new paving "which will include granite pieces of various formats". So one could imagine that a monolith was discovered then ... but it's guesswork.

 

[Kathor1]

another view of the cross on a photo from 1939.

We posted the same photo at exactly the same time. ☺

 

[caminka]

We posted the same photo at exactly the same time. ☺

indeed. it looks like the cross portion of the cross is missing in this photo.

 

[caminka]

I tried various approaches via Google searches but I came up with nothing, and as it is in Spanish, it's also not easy for me to think of promising search terms. I had a look at Molinaseca.es and Molinaseca.info, and two names came up of local men with an interest in local history so depending on how keen you are to pursue this, it might be worth a try to contact them. They are both on Facebook it seems: Rogelio Meléndez Tercero and Alberto Morán Luna. The cross is also known as the Veijo Crucero but you probably know this anyway.

I have been thinking about this if the google search fails, yup.

 

[caminka]

yet another image from between 1924 and 1964. this is the cross with ermita del santo cristo on the right. the house behind the cross is possibly a pilgrims' hospital. no cross portion either but now I'm wondering if the image has been chopped off.

 

[caminka]

this is the best info about the history of molinaseca (molinaseca.info) and its territory that I have come across so far. crucero del santo cristo is said to be the one mentioned in 1202 (unam uineam apud Crucem - a vineyard next to a cross - was given to monasterio de sobrado by dona ingobor). this could indicate the importance of the cross and its position - and, by extension, the importance of the site as a crossroad or (road) marker before being christianized.

 

[Kathor1]

no cross portion either but now I'm wondering if the image has been chopped off

I do think that this crucero which apparently isn't medieval anyway as far as the current column and top is concerned did not have a stone cross on top at some point in time. I find it also a bit odd that the figure of the crucified Christ is in a sort of metal display box that seems to have been added to the column at one point in time (and replaced by a different box at a later time as the photos show) instead of being part of the stone sculpture.

Below is a slightly better version of the photo in #13. The crucero looks more like a rollo without the top cross and Christ figure. The photo is taken from the book Molinaseca Real y Peregrina. It was published in 2014. Someone posted many pages in a YouTube video but the video is not clear enough to make the text readable.

 

[caminka]

I do think that this crucero which apparently isn't medieval anyway as far as the current column and top is concerned did not have a stone cross on top at some point in time. I find it also a bit odd that the figure of the crucified Christ is in a sort of metal display box that seems to have been added to the column at one point in time (and replaced by a different box at a later time as the photos show) instead of being part of the stone sculpture.

Below is a slightly better version of the photo in #13. The crucero looks more like a rollo without the top cross and Christ figure. The photo is taken from the book Molinaseca Real y Peregrina. It was published in 2014. Someone posted many pages in a YouTube video but the video is not clear enough to make the text readable.

that is very interesting. apparently there really was no cross portion for a time and the box with the christ has been added before 1939 (which means that the time frame of the photo from #14 and #15 which was taken between 1924 and 1964 has been reduced to between 1924 and 1939).
if the 1202 document really mentions this cross then it was a proper cross before the cross section has been chopped off or blasted off (from the photos this looks to be the case) - the war for the independence, perhaps?
the box seems to be quite a unique example of fixing the christ to a cross.

this is shaping up to be a cross with a really interesting history.

 

[KinkyOne]

I also think that the photo in post #21 proves that the cruceiro wasn't relocated (at least from the time the photo was taken to nowadays) compared to photos in posts #2 and #13.

 

[caminka]

not specifically about molinaseca, but this documentary about megalithic and celtic galicia (in spanish) mentions stelae dedicated to lares viales along routes and at crossroads being replaced by crosses when the land was christianized. some of the crosses have stone boxes for the saints. see from 37:50.

El Legado Celta de Galicia

 

[mlhhome]

From April 2012... I remember being thankful that we survived the snowy/rainy descent/return to civilization.