Fuentes3

By Fuentes3

Lost their heads...

During the Spanish Civil War, many churches were attacked and their decorative stonework damaged. The damage here, to Santa María de la Oliva in Villaviciosa, was relatively slight; but all eight figures around the door (four shown here) were smashed and broken. When I first came here I was told that this was done by Napoleon´s army because the revolutionary French were atheists, but that is very clearly not true. 
The first extra photo shows a bagpiper ("gaitero"), carved in stone in the 13th century. The town is proud of this symbol of its Celtic past.
The other two extras are from the interior of the church - a Green Man I think, though the ears suggest something more leonine, and an Ecce Homo. The last two were taken in near darkness with a very high ISO.

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