I would like to invite you to a walk through those unknown little towns, which, although not devoid of primitive charm, still persist in surviving, doing so in the most remote and remote of those eternal solitudes, which are the moors of Soria.
To begin with, I recommend that you leave all your prejudices at home and are encouraged to participate in a small trip, where what is humanly simple does not necessarily have to be boring or uninteresting.
An excursion through these simple towns of a Castile that desperately reaches out to the mighty León can motivate them, even making them think that adventure is also found in those places, which, even though they seem to be left by the hand of God, connect us with our roots, evoking infinite nostalgia.
Moñux, is the name of the town that I propose to show you and it is located approximately ten kilometers from a town with a lot of history, which still maintains a good part of its proud presence: Almazán.
Starting, then, from Almazán, along that general road that leads the traveler towards Gómara and even further, towards the mythological Monte Moncayo, on the border with Aragon, we just have to go a few kilometers, to see a small sign, pointing towards the right, invites us to turn off towards Moñux, following a narrow rural road, in which we will soon see, on the top of a conical mountain, the remains of a small castle and a silent town at its feet.
This detail can offer us an idea of its ancient Celtiberian origins, being able to raise such a castle in the place where a small town could once exist, whose inhabitants, pure-breed Celts, perhaps could also participate in the defense of the main Celtiberian city of Soria: Numancia.
Speculations aside, it is possible that the traveler who enters Monux for the first time, gets the wrong impression when seeing an abandoned house whose roof, beaten by time, inclement weather and the forgetfulness of its former inhabitants, lies beaten on what is his day was a pleasant dining room.
Nothing could be further from reality, because apart from this and some other that we will find on our excursion, there is still life in Moñux: a life that develops sedentary, of early departures towards the tillage of fields that extend towards the infinite and indoors, where the farmer appreciates the freshness of some hearths whose stones seem to ooze fire in contact with the hot August sun.
Some houses, which in themselves form an essential part of that rural environment, which in many cases suffers from aesthetic patterns but whose adobe, whose stone and whose wooden framework a wise lesson in objective functionality is observed, which makes of them cool and pleasant stays in summer and comfortable and warm in the harsh plateau winters.
Apart from the castle, there are some remains of its glorious medieval past, such as the jurisdictional roll or pillory, where justice was administered, that funerary stele that serves as a filler on the facade of the small humilladero located in the center of the town or that other one, which shows a beautiful paté cross, the most common type of cross used by the Knights Templar: those who possibly in the misty days of the 13th century had possessions in this place, of which there is hardly any evidence in medieval manuscripts .
If the church was once of Romanesque origin, as indicated by its façade, the coat of arms and some curious stonework marks, there is hardly any trace left today, how remodeled it is.
It is located, together with the cemetery annex, at the top of the town, as was customary at the time to indicate the ecclesial power, but always below the ruins of a castle, which represented, on the other hand, the power and command of the feudal lords of the time.
These, the ruins of the castle, are hardly a beautiful tower, closed tight, so it is not possible for me to show you its interior, but from there you have superb perspectives of the fields that extend around, which in its time It had to give it a really definitive importance, as a place of observation from which the movements of enemies could be foreseen, which during the historical period known as the Reconquest, alternated between Christian and Muslim armies.
NOTICE: Both the text and the photographs that accompany it, as well as the video that illustrates it, are my exclusive intellectual property and are subject to my Copyright.
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