Cidade Velha: previously unknown ruins found

26/01/2010

“Cidade Velha had a cosmopolitan past and appears to have had two ports and a large number of churches and two-story mansions. It is easy now to notice the wealth of this merchant city,” the director of Cambridge University’s Department of Archeology explained to Lusa.

Christopher Evans has no doubt in his mind. In the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries, Ribeira Grande de Santiago, which today is also known as Cidade Velha (“Old City,” in Portuguese), 15 kilometers to the west of the city of Praia, had a golden age, but successive attacks by pirates – among them Britain’s Sir Francis Drake – ended up completely destroying the center of the first city built by Europeans in the tropics, beginning in 1462.

This is yet another facet of Cidade Velha, and one that has given even more enthusiasm to those studying the cradle of the Cape Verdean nation and the recently-declared UNESCO World Heritage Site.