Cerro Cepero
Archaeological site · Granada
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Cerro Cepero is the hill where the Ibero-Roman city of Basti stood, three kilometers northeast of modern Baza. One of Andalusia's most important Iberian fortress towns, it gave its name to the wider Bastetani region and thrived from the 8th century BC into Roman times. Excavations here uncovered a forum and a 1st-2nd-century Roman bathhouse, its cold and hot rooms still traceable.
Archaeologists have worked the hill since the 1940s and 50s, uncovering a public fountain, a Roman temple, a basilica and the complete floor plan of a domus, a Roman town house. Part of the Iberian wall survives too, built with defensive bastions when the settlement first fortified itself as an oppidum in the 8th century BC. Basti stayed inhabited through Roman rule and on into Visigothic and Byzantine control, before it was abandoned at the start of the Middle Ages and its people moved down to found present-day Baza. The site now covers roughly 135 hectares, one of the largest Iberian archaeological complexes in the country.
What you see
Stone foundations trace the plan of a Roman house and public bathhouse across the hilltop, with a stretch of the old Iberian wall and its defensive bastions still standing nearby.
Practical
A visitor center beside the hill, the Centro de Interpretación de Yacimientos Arqueológicos de Basti (CIYA), overlooks the site and is open Tuesday to Sunday, roughly 10am to 2pm with an extended evening slot on some days; entry costs a few euros.
iberian siteroman ruinsarchaeology