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100Late 1st–early 2nd century AD · A Coruña

The Tower of Hercules, Roman lighthouse of A Coruña

The Tower of Hercules lighthouse on its grassy headland above a rocky Atlantic shore at A Coruña
Photo: Diego Delso. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Romans built a lighthouse on the headland of Brigantium, now A Coruña, around the end of the 1st century AD, and an inscription at its foot names its architect, Gaius Sevius Lupus. Encased in a neoclassical shell in the 1780s, it still guides ships, the only lighthouse from the ancient world in working use. Local legend says Hercules built it over the buried head of a giant.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Torre de HérculesRoman masonry core inside the tower, a climb to the top and the inscription.Map ↗

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Read more: reference. Summary written by History-Tours.com.