Estremoz - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

ESTREMOZ, a town of Portugal, in the district of Evora,. formerly included in the province of Alemtejo; 104 m. by rail.

E. of Lisbon, on the Casa Branca-Evora-Elvas railway. Pop. (1900) 7920. Estremoz is built at the base of a hill crowned by a large dismantled citadel; its fortifications, which in the 17th century accommodated 20,000 troops and rendered the town one of the principal defences of the frontier, are now obsolete. There are marble quarries in the neighbourhood, and the Estremoz bilhas, red earthenware jars, are used throughout Portugal as water-holders and exported to Spain. At Ameixial (1188) and Montes Claros, near Estremoz, the Spanish were severely defeated by the Portuguese in 1663 and 1665. Villa Vicosa (3841), 10 m. S.E., is a town of pre-Roman origin, containing a royal palace. The altars with Latin inscriptions to the Iberian god Endovellicus, found at Villa Vicosa, are preserved in the museum of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Lisbon.