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.
528 places · 215 localities · last reviewed 27 October 2026
Spain
ManilvaManilva's coastline carries a long memory of watchfulness: a Nasrid tower stood on this hill before the Spanish crown ordered the coast defended in 1497, and the stone watchtower that followed still looks over Calle Mármol, a quiet residential street built within sight of both tower and an ancient hilltop settlement.
1 dig
7 records Spain EsteponaEstepona's ground carries a long sequence of change: stone tombs from 3000 BC, Roman settlement and cemetery, a shift from Christian to Islamic burial rites, and the town's seizure by Henry IV's forces in 1457, when its mosque became a church. 1 dig
14 records Spain SevillaPlaza de la Encarnación in Sevilla began as ground that carried Roman floors, a Muslim-era wall and gate, and Visigothic remains, later home to an Augustinian convent razed on Napoleonic orders in 1810. A 1990 market and car park project struck those buried layers, freezing work for years until Metropol Parasol, a timber canopy, opened above the ruins in 2011. 2 digs
30 records
72 records
14 records Spain MurciaMurcia grew from a Muslim emirate's walled palace-fortress into a Castilian city, its citadel surrendered by treaty in 1243 and its ruling family displaced within a generation. That stronghold later became a church, a Templar hospital, and a museum, while a cathedral, bridges, and a flour factory marked the centuries after. 1 dig
14 records Spain VigoVigo's Praza da Independencia takes its name from the 1809 Reconquest, when townspeople without a regular garrison drove occupying French forces from the city during the Peninsular War. A monument there still honours them, while the square has since seen more modest changes to its fabric. 1 dig
3 records Spain MadridThis record gathers the ground around Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where a 1547 convent traded gossip, roads were measured from a central marker, a post office became a seat of government, and a 1974 bombing on Calle del Correo killed thirteen people and wounded seventy-one. 1 dig
7 records
7 records Spain EsteponaEstepona's ground carries a long sequence of change: stone tombs from 3000 BC, Roman settlement and cemetery, a shift from Christian to Islamic burial rites, and the town's seizure by Henry IV's forces in 1457, when its mosque became a church. 1 dig
14 records Spain SevillaPlaza de la Encarnación in Sevilla began as ground that carried Roman floors, a Muslim-era wall and gate, and Visigothic remains, later home to an Augustinian convent razed on Napoleonic orders in 1810. A 1990 market and car park project struck those buried layers, freezing work for years until Metropol Parasol, a timber canopy, opened above the ruins in 2011. 2 digs
30 records
The car park that dug up two thousand years
Iglesia de la Anunciación · 749 BC–2011
The parking lot that dug up two thousand years
Facultad de Bellas Artes · 749 BC–2011
Spain
Jerez de la FronteraJerez de la Frontera grew around an Almohad alcázar whose mosque, baths and cisterns made it a self-sufficient town within a town, until Christian forces took it in 1261 and again, decisively, in 1264. Alfonso X renamed its parishes, converted its mosque, and set a pattern of conquest, faith and reprisal that later touched a murdered queen and executed labourers.
3 digs72 records
A mayor's stunt got a track banned from Formula One forever
Castillo Melgarejo · 1162–1984
The day a conquest got a name
Casa de Cabildo · 1231–1930
The bride who was walled in and never let out
Jerez de la Frontera Cathedral · 1231–1980
Spain
ValenciaValencia's ground carries a long span: Roman Valentia beneath the streets, a city conquered by James I of Aragon in 1238, a university requested of the pope in 1246 and finally chartered in 1499, and a school founded in 1959 on ground close by.
1 dig14 records Spain MurciaMurcia grew from a Muslim emirate's walled palace-fortress into a Castilian city, its citadel surrendered by treaty in 1243 and its ruling family displaced within a generation. That stronghold later became a church, a Templar hospital, and a museum, while a cathedral, bridges, and a flour factory marked the centuries after. 1 dig
14 records Spain VigoVigo's Praza da Independencia takes its name from the 1809 Reconquest, when townspeople without a regular garrison drove occupying French forces from the city during the Peninsular War. A monument there still honours them, while the square has since seen more modest changes to its fabric. 1 dig
3 records Spain MadridThis record gathers the ground around Puerta del Sol in Madrid, where a 1547 convent traded gossip, roads were measured from a central marker, a post office became a seat of government, and a 1974 bombing on Calle del Correo killed thirteen people and wounded seventy-one. 1 dig
7 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.