Jets of blood run through the veins of its history, but also infinite enigmas of difficult solution. Seen in the distance, Sepulveda is, comparatively speaking, like that fabulous mountain of Arab traditions, the Khaf, in whose surface the fabulous Roc bird lives, but in whose entrails they survive, indolent in time, treasures lost in the night of the time.
Celts and Romans, Arabs and Christians left their traces in an unmistakable confluence that, although on a smaller scale, make this city a small toletum located in the heart of Castile.

It is enough to take a look at its narrow streets, full of symbols and memories, to its transformed Jewish quarter, barely recognizable by the new constructions and its millenary traditions, to understand that there was a time in which the Knowledge circulated at will among the different people of the Book.

Of its medieval prosperity, they give testimony the remains of the walls that surrounded it and the numerous temples that, in better or worse state, still maintain their towers-belfry up towards heavens in which on clear nights, you can still see the Car's lamp guiding the way of the pilgrims.

People of the road must also be those same artisans who established their workshops and built temples of beauty and precision, among which stand on the highest, the Savior and the other dedicated to the figure of a Virgin Negra: Nª Sª de la Peña, possibly those who have suffered the least alterations of a time and some men who forgot their true meaning and value.

Arriving at the Temple of the Savior, means ascending a small via crucis that, despite the possible fatigue of the ascent, provides splendid views of a city that seems to sleep an eternal dream around the mountain on which it sits.

Of slender proportions, it conserves a beautiful porticoed gallery and practically intact all its original ornamentation. An ornamentation, in whose details we will find, perhaps, elements that provide us with a clue, if not of who were actually those who raised it, yes at least, more or less reliable reviews, where they were from and also where they stopped.

By a certain special type of knot-purposely placed in video that illustrates the present entry, one could say that they were contemporaries and even possibly worked there, beyond the border with Soria, in the also arcane temple of San Miguel in San Esteban de Gormaz .

But unlike this one, in which there are hardly any marks, the stonemasons who erected the temple of the Savior, left, in blocks that stubbornly challenge time, a small collection of symbols, which is worth observing.

Most, as a whole, do not differ scarcely from those that can be found in many temples of their characteristics, regardless of where they rise: compass, arrows, initials, runic forms, goose legs, etc. But there is one, quite abundant, by the way, that attracts a lot of attention, since its shape, ancient and well known from the most remote antiquity, is not usually seen easily: the swastika.

In fact, I only remember seeing it as a stonemason's mark, in the cloister of a monastery in Orense, which was downgraded, that of Santa María de Xunquera de Espadañedo. A swastika that, curiously, keeps without trace the upper and lower end of the central log.

A form that, in fact, can not be found in any of the other temples, not only in the city (Santiago, Justo and Pastor, San Bartolomé), but also, I would dare to say, in the whole region.

There are also some Roman inscriptions, probably belonging to ancient tombs, and some curious graffiti, such as the one that shows a strange figure - perhaps an angel or a Marian representation - carrying a cross. And not far away, a crismón to whose foot of appreciates a date, to which some consider that one in which the temple was consecrated, but that others deny and consider apocryphal.

In short, just small drops of water in a troubled sea, because you could really say that they are insignificant if we compare them to the extraordinary symbolism that the mysterious stonemasons displayed in the ornamentation of a temple that, as the dedication in the street, at the beginning of the climb, traveler taster of the spell of this village; it rises and arrives fervently until the altar of Castile, where in Romanesque it shines, the jewel of the Savior.

NOTICE: Originally published in my blog TRAS LAS HUELLAS DE LOS CANTEROS MEDIEVALES under the title Marcas de cantería en la iglesia más antigua de Sepúlveda. Both the text and the accompanying photographs are my exclusive original property. The original entry, where you can check the authorship of juancar347, can be found at the following address: https://canterosmedievales.blogspot.com/2014/08/marcas-de-canteria-en-la-iglesia-mas.html

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[Martial, latin poet]

Ars vtinam more Animvm qve effingere. Posses pulchrior in ter. Ris nvlla tabella foret.

Arte Ojala pudieras representar. el carácter y el espíritu. No habría sobre la tierra. Imagen más bella

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