Las Médulas

It is a name that describes a wound. Rome opened here the largest gold mine of the Empire and carried off the whole mountain with water: the technique Pliny called ruina montium, 'the collapse of the mountains'. What remains are the red pinnacles, and from them comes the firmest reading of the name: from Latin meta, 'conical heap' —⁠the same that gives Galician meda, the haystack of grain⁠—⁠, after the shape of the spoil. Others hear in Médulas the Latin medulla, 'the marrow', for the hollowed interior of the mountain; and others tie it to the Mons Medullius where, according to Florus and Orosius, the Astures let themselves die rather than surrender. None quite wins. The landscape, on the other hand, leaves no doubt: it is what Rome left when it finished looking for gold.