The library of ground
Every place Strata has dug, assembled from its sources and filed by locality and era. A place is reviewed again whenever the ground beneath it is dug afresh.
125 places · 53 localities · last reviewed 12 September 2026
Portugal
Salvaterra de MagosSalvaterra de Magos grew up around a royal hunting retreat built in the 1500s and favoured by the Portuguese crown into the 1700s. Fires in 1817 and 1828 and an earthquake in 1858 brought the palace down, leaving only its chapel and falconry standing near where the bullring now stands.
1 dig
9 records Portugal CascaisCascais grew from a fishing town into King Luís I's summer court in the 1870s, then sheltered exiled royalty and wartime couriers through the Second World War, while nearby Alcabideche holds Roman remains and ancient granite beneath ground that later records have yet to fill in. 4 digs
27 records
8 records Portugal Sobral de Monte AgracoSobral de Monte Agraço is the hill town where André Masséna's invading French army was stopped in October 1810, held through a starving winter behind Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras, and turned back towards Spain in March 1811, never reaching Lisbon. 1 dig
5 records Portugal MafraMafra grew around a king's vow: John V promised in 1711 to build a convent if his wife bore an heir, and that promise became the vast Palace of Mafra, finished in 1755. The town's old stone pillory still stands nearby, marking older judicial ground. 1 dig
12 records Portugal SintraSintra grew up around a royal palace on high ground, holding kings from birth to death across four centuries. It passed from medieval Templar tenure through royal confinement and consort rule, into a town of fire, legend and rehearsed disaster on its outskirts. 5 digs
21 records Portugal LisbonLisbon's ground carries a walled hill taken by siege in 1147, a riverside palace lost to the 1755 earthquake, and buildings where the secret police worked and finally fired on a crowd in 1974. Each site here was researched on its own before being gathered into this record. 4 digs
44 records
4 records Portugal Santa Maria MaiorSanta Maria Maior, a parish in central Lisbon, holds ground once ruled by kings and monks alike. The Ribeira Palace stood here for around 250 years before the 1755 earthquake destroyed it, and Carmo Convent, founded in 1389, still stands roofless from that same morning. 2 digs
23 records
7 records Portugal AldoarAldoar, on the edge of Porto near the mouth of the Douro, holds ground where a bishop's Renaissance chapel was later swallowed by a fortress wall. Built in the 1520s and rebuilt into a bastion against Spain between 1646 and 1653, it marks a place shaped by faith and defence in turn. 1 dig
5 records Portugal MisericordiaMisericórdia is a Lisbon parish shaped twice by disaster — the 1755 earthquake and the 1988 Chiado fire — where a poet's uncertain grave, a ruined convent, and rebuilt shopping streets sit together around Praça Luís de Camões and Largo do Chiado. 2 digs
26 records
9 records Portugal CascaisCascais grew from a fishing town into King Luís I's summer court in the 1870s, then sheltered exiled royalty and wartime couriers through the Second World War, while nearby Alcabideche holds Roman remains and ancient granite beneath ground that later records have yet to fill in. 4 digs
27 records
A hillside outside Cascais with nothing pinned to it yet
Alcabideche · 500–1896
A regent, a king and a chess champion all died in exile here
Os Três Emissários Polacos · 1606–2016
A fishing village becomes a king's chosen court
Chalet Monte Real · 1520–2018
Portugal
PenichePeniche, on the coast of Portugal, is defined by its fortress, raised from 1557 against pirate raids and later turned into the Estado Novo's most feared political prison, holding dictatorship opponents until 1974, and before that a place of internment and, once, disaster at sea.
1 dig8 records Portugal Sobral de Monte AgracoSobral de Monte Agraço is the hill town where André Masséna's invading French army was stopped in October 1810, held through a starving winter behind Wellington's Lines of Torres Vedras, and turned back towards Spain in March 1811, never reaching Lisbon. 1 dig
5 records Portugal MafraMafra grew around a king's vow: John V promised in 1711 to build a convent if his wife bore an heir, and that promise became the vast Palace of Mafra, finished in 1755. The town's old stone pillory still stands nearby, marking older judicial ground. 1 dig
12 records Portugal SintraSintra grew up around a royal palace on high ground, holding kings from birth to death across four centuries. It passed from medieval Templar tenure through royal confinement and consort rule, into a town of fire, legend and rehearsed disaster on its outskirts. 5 digs
21 records Portugal LisbonLisbon's ground carries a walled hill taken by siege in 1147, a riverside palace lost to the 1755 earthquake, and buildings where the secret police worked and finally fired on a crowd in 1974. Each site here was researched on its own before being gathered into this record. 4 digs
44 records
The knight who blocked a closing gate with his body
Painel de Azulejos "Conquista de Lisboa" · 6400 BC–2012
The king who wouldn't sit for his own portrait
Praça do Comércio · 200 BC–1965
The building where the last shots for the dictatorship were fired
Palácio do Barão de Quintela e Conde de Farrobo · 1367–2025
Where Lisbon's secret police kept its files and its cells
Edifício no Largo Corpo Santo, n. 19 - 22 · 1506–1974
Portugal
GrandolaGrândola, in the district that bears its name, is remembered above all for lending its name to a song. On 25 April 1974,
1 dig4 records Portugal Santa Maria MaiorSanta Maria Maior, a parish in central Lisbon, holds ground once ruled by kings and monks alike. The Ribeira Palace stood here for around 250 years before the 1755 earthquake destroyed it, and Carmo Convent, founded in 1389, still stands roofless from that same morning. 2 digs
23 records
Kings ruled here for 250 years, then the ground shrugged
Núcleo Arqueológico da Rua dos Correeiros · 1000–1875
A convent that watched power fall twice
Palacete Loures · 1147–2012
Portugal
Parque das NacoesParque das Nações occupies a stretch of Lisbon's Tagus riverfront that passed through shipbuilding, wartime seaplanes, transatlantic flying boats, and decades of slaughterhouses and refineries before the 1992-1998 clearance for Expo '98, which left behind the Vasco da Gama Tower and its sculpture Cursiva.
1 dig7 records Portugal AldoarAldoar, on the edge of Porto near the mouth of the Douro, holds ground where a bishop's Renaissance chapel was later swallowed by a fortress wall. Built in the 1520s and rebuilt into a bastion against Spain between 1646 and 1653, it marks a place shaped by faith and defence in turn. 1 dig
5 records Portugal MisericordiaMisericórdia is a Lisbon parish shaped twice by disaster — the 1755 earthquake and the 1988 Chiado fire — where a poet's uncertain grave, a ruined convent, and rebuilt shopping streets sit together around Praça Luís de Camões and Largo do Chiado. 2 digs
26 records
A record of ground, not a magazine.
Nothing here was commissioned. Each place is assembled from its own sources, published at the resolution of the ground rather than the point, and reviewed again when the record changes. No page reports a person.