Note: The following was written in August 2023, but the events took place in June 2023.
Past. Present. Future.
Intertwined together in a single moment.
These are the words that come to mind when I think of Evora, a small rural town with deep historical roots in the Portuguese backcountry. Life in the village dates back to the Medieval Age, when a perimeter of fortified stone surrounded the town to protect its inhabitants from invasion.
Today, Evora has outgrown its ancient fortress. Immediately outside its walls is a paved roundabout where cars and trucks ebb and flow in a seamless carousel of modern traffic. Each vehicle exits the roundabout in a separate direction toward its own, unique destination. Some disappear under an entryway into the fortress. Others continue past an aqueduct that still carries water to the town to this day. Altogether, this bustling scene offers an interesting juxtaposition of modern life against the backdrop of an ancient, fortified wall.
We waited for a break in the traffic before crossing the roundabout and entering a pedestrian passageway in the fortified wall. I went through first, followed by Tommy, Courtney, and their double-seated stroller. Now on the other side, it felt as if we had literally passed through a time portal into history.
Yet, evidence of modern life was still present all around us.
Traffic rumbled down cobblestone roads, narrowly passing the shoulders of pedestrians as they strolled along uneven, cobblestone sidewalks. Each building seemed to carry the identifiable characteristics of Portuguese design: concrete painted white, with a yellow trim along its edges. As a pleasant, congenial touch, many of the iron balconies were adorned with laundry hanging on a line.
Despite all the passing years – centuries, even – Evora has somehow retained its historical charm. Interspersed between the more modern apartments and roads, we still had to walk or drive through stone arches and pillars that remained from the fortress’ original construction. Lamps were mounted over the sidewalks. Although likely sourced with electricity today, one can easily envision their lit candle wicks illuminating an otherwise dark and quiet night.
The weather couldn’t have been more pleasant, either. The air was dry, the day was sunny, and the breeze was warm. The bright blue canvas of the daytime sky offered a picturesque backdrop for the puffy, white clouds that drifted carelessly by.
We soon stumbled upon Evora’s central plaza, what was essentially the main town square. On one end was a church and a fountain; on the other side was a government building. Between these two ends, shops and restaurants lined the square. In competing bids for locals and tourists alike, restaurants pitched tents across the plaza grounds with an enticing offer of shady reprieve from the summer sun and an invitation to a midday siesta. We decided this seemed as good a spot as any, so we settled into a table and promptly ordered two bottles of chilled white wine with our meals. Naturally, we concluded our lunch with a shot of espresso to carry us through the afternoon.
Walking a few blocks over from the plaza, we approached the Royal Church of St. Francis. It was originally built in the 16th century, but its main draw for us was as intriguing as it was haunting: Capela dos Ossos, otherwise known as “The Chapel of Bones.”
Five centuries ago, three monks established the chapel as a means for congregants to bypass Purgatory and secure their passage to Heaven. The price for admission, however, was donating one’s remains to construct the chapel itself. At the time, Evora was known as a town of wealth, and the “Chapel of Bones,” was intended to be a truly visceral reminder that the material possessions we carry in this life will be of no use to us in the next.
Tommy and I purchased our tickets and briefly paused in the chapel’s courtyard before going inside. I’ll admit I was a bit anxious. My heart beat a little faster with an uneasy mix of apprehension and curiosity. Within our line of sight, the chapel’s entryway stood brazenly open with a foreboding inscription across the top:
“Nós ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos,” or: “We bones, are here, waiting for yours.”
With a deep, collective breath, Tommy and I stepped inside. Swirls of dust were illuminated in streaks of sunlight that beamed through windows on our left-hand side. The interior was dimly lit with yellow, incandescent lights that underscored the feeling that we were in the presence of divinity. Straight ahead, six pillars bordered a short walkway toward a prominently displayed crucifix.
These pillars were the first clear and unequivocal sign of how this chapel got its name, as each one was constructed with stacks of skulls and femurs layered in concrete. The walls, too, were composed of thousands of skulls, femurs, and other miscellaneous bones. Above us, the vaulted ceiling was painted with culturally relevant imagery, hand-in-hand with religious icons and visceral allegories of life and death.
In all, the sheer volume of human remains constructing the chapel was truly astounding. Each skull was in varying states of deterioration, evidence of the years, decades, and even centuries that has clearly passed by since they were laid here within. The collective deterioration of these remains even went so far as to exemplify the fragile state of our humanity, considering that time will continually carry on without us – even after our death.
This created an atmosphere of reverence that demanded a moment of introspective reflection.
While the chapel served as a dramatic display of the delicate balance between fragility of life and the finality of death, I departed with a deep appreciation for the message the chapel was designed to deliver:
“We bones, are here, waiting for yours.”
A truly humbling and irrefutable truth.
As we stepped out into the daylight, the gravity of the chapel was seemingly lifted off our shoulders. It was a relief to be back in the sunlight, in the land of the living.
We continued our walk through Evora until we arrived at another ancient feature within the walls of Evora: Templo de Diana, or the Roman Temple of Evora. A short but steep walk from Capela dos Ossos, Templo de Diana has stood on the central grounds of Evora dating back to the 1st century CE. Today, however, the scars of time have left a little over half of the temple still standing.
Two street performers plugged into an amplifier and began playing music in front of the ancient temple, soliciting a few extra dollars from pedestrians walking by. I wandered around the temple remains, simply awestruck at its historic implications.
But like the ancient temple, time was no longer on our side. We set an ambitious itinerary for ourselves today, with more to see in the Portuguese backcountry before the sun began its descent. So we retraced our steps back through the historic roads and passageways of Evora, exited the fortified walls, and rejoined modern society as we returned to our car.
But the emerging theme of the day – our passage through the annals of time – was far from over.
After a short drive through the rolling hills of Portugal’s Alentejo region, we pulled to the side of a remote dirt road. We climbed out of the car and into the warm, dry air, as the mid-afternoon sun baked into the ground beneath our feet. After a stretch that often accompanies a long car ride, I looked around to find myself surrounded by a parade of cork trees on either side of the road.
Portugal is and remains the largest exporter of cork. Remarkably stout, cork trees are notably distinct in that their bark – from which the cork we use in everything from wine bottles to building insulation – has more often than not been stripped from its trunk. Stripped bare, the trunks of cork trees are visibly darker than the rest of its branches above. Also marking each trunk was a white, spray-painted number. Cork farmers, who strip these trees and harvest their cork once every ten years, mark the harvested trees with the final numeral of the year in which it was last harvested.
Therefore, if a tree is marked with a “1,” that means it was last harvested in 2021. Coincidentally, that also means the tree will not be ready for another harvest until 2031.
Our next stop was in and amongst these cork farms – Almendres Cromlech – known locally as Cromeleque dos Almendres. It was a megalithic site, consisting of a prehistoric stone structure built in an intentionally designed formation. Oftentimes, Almendres Cromlech is referred to as “Portuguese Stonehenge.” With 90 massive stones laid in two concentric rings, they were placed on this Portuguese hillside somewhere between 4000-5000 BC. Ironically enough, this makes “Portuguese Stonehenge” roughly 2,000 years older than its supposed namesake – the world-renowned Stonehenge in England.
The purpose of Almendres Cromlech, or even how it was constructed, remains a mystery to this day. According to local traditions, the megalithic site is believed to measure the alignment of the moon, sun, and stars. But what was remarkably striking to me was that it was not discovered until relatively recent history: specifically, the 1950s.
We wandered in and amongst the megalithic stones in awestruck curiosity, before returning down the road of parading cork trees and back to our car. We could not wait for the alignment of the sun, moon and stars tonight, for we had one more stop to make: Montemor-o-Novo.
After another hour or so of Portuguese backcountry driving, we arrived at a castle perched on a hillside. Above its gated entrance, the red and green flag of Portugal oscillated in a steady wind.
We strolled along the castle grounds and atop its walls, taking in the expanse of white-painted, red-shingled homes of rural Portugal against a stunning backdrop of the Alentejo region’s rolling green hillsides. The castle at Montemor-o-Novo spanned the entire hillside, connected from one far outpost to the other. We roamed curiously through the castle grounds, with its remains of weather-worn rock and crumbling stone.
The sun was fading fast by the time we reached the highest outpost on the far southwestern side. But here, we found a swing set built into the hillside. Courtney and Tommy took advantage of this opportunity to take turns swinging with their children, while I slipped away to further explore the confines of this particular outpost.
I climbed the southwestern wall and walked out along its farthest ledge. The setting sun was lighting the countryside aglow, accentuating the beautiful expanse of the Alentejo region.
It was an appropriate way to finish a day exploring the intersection of ancient history and modern life. For when the sun sets on one day, it will soon rise again the following morning. This daily ritual inspires thought and reflection on the relationship between time and humanity: where we’ve been, where we are, and perhaps most importantly, where we’re going.
For ultimately, as the Chapel of Bones soberly demonstrated to us just a few hours earlier, we will all one day reach the same, inevitable destination; and if I learned anything from my brief time in Evora, it’s that even when our time is up – life will carry on without us.
But if there’s any other lesson from this day, it’s that just because we may inevitably depart from this earthly life – that does not mean the end of our existence. For Evora also stands as a visceral testament that we share another commonality with the people of ancient history despite this inevitable passage of time: the shared human experience.
Each and every day we experience this curious and never-ending intersection of our past, present, and future, all intertwined in a single moment. Yet, the evidence of our existence as a humanity is chronicled across the annals of time in the things we can create – and the things we leave behind for future generations.
From its bone-filled chapels and deteriorating temples, to mysterious megalithic stones and awe-inspring countryside castles, the Alentejo region – and Evora in particular – proudly bears the evidence of our very existence, our very humanity.
A humanity founded in this universal and shared experience of life here on Earth.
Cheers!