Carpetani

The Carpetani were one of the Celtic pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula (the Roman Hispania, modern Spain and Portugal), akin to the Celtiberians, dwelling in the central part of the meseta - the high central upland plain of the Iberian Peninsula. Since the 5th century BC the Carpetani inhabited the Toledo and Alcaraz highland ranges along the middle Tagus basin, occupying a territory that stretched from the Guadarrama river at the north to the upper Anas (Guadiana) in the modern provinces of Guadalajara, Toledo, Madrid and Ciudad Real, an area designated as Carpetania in the ancient sources. Main city-states (Civitates) in the region were Toletum (near modern Toledo; Roman or Celtiberian-type mint: Tole), Iplacea/Complutum (Alcalá de Henares – Madrid); Celtiberian-type mint: Ikezancom Konbouto?), Titulcia (El Cerrón, near modern Titulcia – Madrid), Consabura (Consuegra – Toledo), Barnacis (Orgaz – Ciudad Real; Celtiberian-type mint: Bornaiscom), Laminium (Argamasilla de Alba or Alhambra – Ciudad Real) and Alce (Campo de Criptana – Ciudad Real). Towns of lesser importance were Aebura (Cuerva – Toledo), Metercosa (Madridejos – Toledo), Ispinum (Yepes – Toledo), Miaccum (Casa de Campo – Madrid), Mantua (Montiel – Ciudad Real), Thermida (Trillo – Guadalajara), Ilarcuris (Horche – Guadalajara) and Ilurbida (Lorvigo, near Talavera de la Reina – Toledo). The exact location of the remaining Carpetanian towns is either uncertain or unknown, this is true in the cases of Dipo (near Toledo?), Libora, Varada, Caracca or Characa, Rigusa, Paterniana, and Alternia. The origins of the Carpetani are obscure though their ruling elite certainly had Celtiberian and Gallic-Belgae elements, whose ancestors arrived to the Peninsula in the wake of the Celtic migration at the 4th century BC; the rest of the population was clearly Indo-European and very mixed, including people of native Ibero-Tartessian and Indo-Aryan affiliation.