Roads and their signage
The earliest references to the existence of the “camino de los pilones” are related to one of the most prominent monarchs of the Crown of Aragon in the Middle Ages. In the first half of the 13th century, King James I traveled along this route – at that time without the existence of the pylons – on several of his journeys.
From the first milestones to modern signage
Throughout the history of mankind, some cultures such as the Romans dedicated great efforts to plan and build roads in order to facilitate the passage of the army, communications and trade. In Roman times, milestones were the first milestones placed with a certain sense on communication routes. They were oval cylindrical columns that were placed on the sides of roads to mark distances. The word comes from the Latin “miliarium” and they were placed every thousand passus (double Roman steps), that is, every Roman mile, which is equivalent to a distance of approximately 1,480 meters.
The Roman roads were used throughout the following centuries with hardly any changes or extensions since, until well into the 18th century, the State did not take on the construction of roads and the planning of the existing communications structure with its corresponding signaling. In fact, after the publication of the first pragmatic law by Philip II in 1586 to mark the routes in mountainous areas by means of pillars, a law that only affected the Castilian territories, it was not until 1755 that we find another mention in this regard. The obligation to have posts or pillars in the passes was recalled by Thomas Manuel Fernández de Mesa in his treatise on public roads and inns. In 1749 the Instruction of the Quartermasters of Provinces had ordered the placement of signs in places where two or more roads or paths meet.
Later, engineer Espinosa published in 1855 a treatise on road layout, construction and conservation, and proposed that “the posts or guides for sites exposed to heavy snowfalls should be made solid, but at very little cost; it is enough to place rough ashlar pillars at the points where they abound, masonry prisms, wooden posts or debarked tree trunks”.
As roads were built from the second half of the 19th century onwards, instructions were developed in parallel to homogenize their signaling and marking. Some roads were marked with leguarios, indicating the distances in leagues to the main towns. A league is an ancient unit of length that expresses the distance that a person, on foot, can walk for one hour. Depending on the type of terrain prevailing in each region or according to state convenience, a legua normally covers distances ranging from 4 to 7 km. The Circular of October 15, 1861 established criteria to homogenize the hectometric, kilometric and myriometric milestones, provincial boundary milestones, bifurcation posts and grade markers, which evolved until reaching the current signage.
The stone pillars continued to be milestones guiding some roads and highways until the first third of the twentieth century. From then on, with the use of motor vehicles and snow clearing works, priority was given to the delimitation of road edges to avoid accidents caused by vehicles leaving the road.
The 1939 Highway Instruction of 1939 established for the first time how the posts for snow regions should be, a structure in the form of a square reinforced concrete post of two to three meters in height topped with a pyramidal shape. These posts were painted by alternating forty-centimeter high strips with the distinctive color of the road and the white color and were placed on both sides of the road, varying their spacing depending on whether they were on curves or straight.
During the 1960s, simpler metallic markers began to be placed and between 2007 and 2011, a technical commission appointed by the then Ministry of Public Works drew up Recommendations for Marking.
Peirons and crosses of term
An equivalent to these milestones, already from the period of the Christian conquest, are the peirones or term crosses, which were placed at the exits of the towns and at crossroads to serve as a guide and as an element of protection for the people who passed through there.
The word “peirón” derives from the Latin “petra” (rock). Originally a “pedró” was a stone or pillar planted in an important place in the municipality of a town or on the border between different municipalities. This stone was usually topped in a rough way with a cross. This was the origin of the beautiful monuments that from the 14th century onwards began to be built in some localities of Maestrazgo, made up of carved stone crosses in imitation of the goldsmith’s processional crosses that the towns of the territory had on high pillars or shafts set on sturdy stands.
Bibliography
ALTABA ESCORIHUELA, J. “Cantavieja and its Baylia”, Teruel, 1978.
CASAS NAGORE, Carlos. “Camineros, de la senda a la autovía. Roads of Teruel”. Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 2021.
MEDINA CANDEL, Francisco. “Els Peirons. The monumental stone crosses of the old Bailiwick of Morella (s. XIV-XXI). Diputación de Castellón, 2015.
SANCHIS ALFONSO, José Ramón, “El “Libro de los Pasos” de Villarroya de los Pinares: Fuente para el estudio de sus masadas en el siglo XVIII”, in Hábitat disperso y desarrollo rural (Actas del II Coloquio sobre el Hábitat Disperso, held in Cantavieja on May 12 and 13, 2006),
Teruel, CEDDAR and Maestrazgo Development Association, 2008.
SANCHÍS ALFONSO, José Ramón. “El Camino de los Pilones: Una antigua vía de comunicación con carácter propio por tierras turolenses.” Baylías, Miscelánea del CEMAT, nº 5, Year 2008, ed.
CEMAT, Teruel, 2009. Link to the article: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://cematmaestrazgo.com/wp-content/ uploads/Baylias-5.pdf
Publications in magazines and websites
Verde Teruel” magazine no. 11, page 83-89, “Signs of Marco Polo’s time. From Allepuz to Villarroya de los Pinares”.
Poborina Folk” magazine, n.º 6, page 9.
Zaida” magazine, no. 61, page 24-28.
News in the Diario de Teruel: https://www.diariodeteruel.es/comarcas/corbalan-y-el-pobo-van-a-recuperar-para-el-turismo-el-camino-de-los-pilones
Recommendations for visits
Teruel Road Museum: https://www.transportes.gob.es/ministerio/exposiciones-y-museos/museo-teruel
Links of interest
Blog “Historias de carreteras”, by Carlos Casas Nagore: https://historiasdecarreteras.com/
Routes, roads and postal stamps in Aragon, 16th-18th century: https://ifc.dpz.es/webs/atlash/indice_epocas/moderna/69.htm