Village
Oliete is a municipality in the Andorra-Sierra de Arcos comarca, in the province of Teruel, located at 541 metres above sea level on the banks of the Martín river. With 351 inhabitants, it preserves three medieval arches that were fortified entrances to the village, the church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, from the 18th century with a Mudéjar bell tower, and the Renaissance Casa de la Donjuana, from the 16th century. Within its municipal area is the Frontón de la Tía Chula, with schematic rock paintings some 4.500 years old considered the oldest solar sanctuary in the world, and the Iberian settlement of El Palomar, destroyed during the Sertorian Wars. It also maintains a notable olive grove of the empeltre variety, with a recovery initiative under way since 2014 for tens of thousands of abandoned century-old olive trees.
Monument
The arcos capilla of Oliete are three medieval arches that supported the chapels of the Virgen del Pilar, Saint Fabian and Saint Sebastian, and Saint Barbara, at the entrance to the town of Oliete (Teruel). They dated from the Middle Ages and were the three fortified entrances to the town: the Arch of the Holy Martyrs, at the start of the calle Mayor; the Arch of Saint Barbara, at the end of the street of the same name; and the Arch of the Pilar, at the end of the calle Baja.
Nature
Cultural park covering about 160 km² straddling the provinces of Zaragoza and Teruel, established in 1995 and recognised as a Natura 2000 site. In the stretch near Oliete, within the Andorra-Sierra de Arcos comarca, the river Martín carves gorges through limestone formations, among which the Los Estrechos canyon stands out. The park brings together notable archaeological heritage: Palaeolithic settlements such as the Cueva de Eudoviges, the Iberian settlement of the Cabezo de San Pedro de los Griegos and a dinosaur footprint site, as well as the rock art complex of the Ruta de los Estrechos, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Nature
One of the largest groups of century-old and thousand-year-old empeltre olive trees on the Iberian Peninsula, spread across the district of Oliete within the Río Martín Cultural Park.
Activity
Patron saint festivities of Oliete on 24 August, in honour of San Bartolomé, whose hermitage gives its name to the town's main square. On 14 September the Exaltación de la Santa Cruz is also celebrated.
Curiosity
Empeltre olive variety introduced in the late 17th century in Oliete, one of the oldest documented in the Iberian Peninsula, and today abundant in the municipality, whose very name comes from the Latin olivetum. Currently 70% of the olive groves are abandoned; since 2014 the Apadrinaunolivo.org initiative has been working to recover nearly 100,000 abandoned century-old olive trees, within the Aceite del Bajo Aragón designation of origin.
Nature
The Cueva Foradada reservoir collects the waters of the río Martín in an impressive gorge cut into the sierra de los Moros, in the municipal district of Oliete (Teruel), within the Parque Cultural del Río Martín, declared a World Heritage site in 1998 as part of the rock art of the Mediterranean Basin on the Iberian Peninsula. Its dam, built between 1903 and 1927 and belonging to the Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro, has a capacity of about 22 cubic hectometres and is accessible from its base by a stairway of 272 steps. The reservoir extends from Oliete to Alcaine, and on its shores it is common to find wildlife such as griffon vultures, eagles and Iberian wild goats.
Activity
In Oliete the residents gather firewood for the bonfire of San Antón with the help of the Asociación de Amigos del Caballo, and in the afternoon the parish priest blesses, at the saint's hermitage, the animals brought to him.
Activity
As in other villages of the comarca, Oliete also lights the bonfire of San Blas, on 3 February, in a municipality known for its thousand-year-old empeltre olive trees.
Monument
The bridge over the river Martín in Oliete was built in 1909, during the village's period of greatest prosperity, when the irrigation later brought by the embalse de Cueva Foradada coincided with the boom in oil, wine and saffron, the opening of new coal mines, and a power station running since 1902; the population came to exceed 2,500 inhabitants in 1910.