Interventions in the Hillfort
From 1972, when the excavations started in the Castro de Viladonga, bush clearing and punctual consolidation of the excavated structures were performed periodically.
After some years of abandonment, in 1982, Felipe Arias got in charge of the archaeological work (and a little later of the museum work too), a cleaning and bush clearing was made in the croa and the main wall of the hillfort. The walls of the constructions of the croa were cleaned, the fallen stones were replaced and the walls were covered with clumps of grass to fix the upper rows. These performances, that became habitual in the following campaigns, were also made in those years without archaeological excavations.
Following the study made in 2007 by Benita Silva and her team from the Departamento de Edafoloxía e Química Agrícola of the USC, about the deterioration factors of the Castro de Viladonga, the integral restoration of the structures of the hillfort was planned, based in the existence of serious alterations in the stone and in the collapses, sometimes of a considerable size, caused by the weathering of the material and the pushing made by the soil and the stones. The project was programmed to be executed in several stages, in a way that all the structures of the site can be restored.
The work consisted in diagnosis and graphic documentation, tube placement for consolidation with silicates and for draining, in the structural reconstruction of the walls, differentiating it with pebbles of white quartz got on site (this is being made since 1983) and crowning the headers with a protection of slabs adapted to the wall, always with reversible character. In the structural reconstructions several tones of mortar were used according to the ones used originally.
In 2009, after the archaeological excavation was finished, the fallen walls consolidation was made, they were unmounted in the precise measure and replaced following the system used the last years in this site, using mostly the same collapsed stone and agglutinating it with a clayey mortar similar to the original, marking the division between the original part and the restored one with pebbles of quartz, for covering the header of the walls with slabs in order to protect them from inclement weather and from the possibility of aggressions and incidences produced by the continuous visits to the hillfort. The consolidation ends putting clamps of grass cut ad hoc for a better patrimonial and ecological integration of the intervention.
The 2010 campaign focused both in the main entrance and in four neighbourhoods or sets built in the center and in the north of the settlement. In all of these spaces the consolidation system described before was followed, but it is important to point out that this work allowed to have a better knowledge of the layout of some walls from constructions stuck to each other, as well as defining complementary spaces or small structures that weren’t well defined until now.
From 2012, the restoration and consolidation work still went on, co-financed by European founds (FEDER) and the Dirección Xeral de Patrimonio of the Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria of the Xunta de Galicia under the project: Archaeological conditioning and consolidation for the value of the Castro de Viladonga (Castro de Rei, Lugo), with the purpose of guarantying its conservation because it is a heritage resource declared to be of Cultural Interest.
In 2016, the company Terra Arqueos, S.L. takes over the restauration, this adds an intervention standard experimented successfully in other similar sites. The head of the walls is covered with one or more protection course made in slab and shale and with an outdoor resistant mortar that makes necessary to put the slabs and protection clods used until now. This solution improves the reading of the different construction phases.
