Endovelicus has a temple in San Miguel Mota, Alentejo, Portugal, and there are numerous inscriptions and ex-votos dedicated to him in the National Museum of Ethnology. The cult of Endovelicus survived until the fifth century until Christianity spread in the region.

There are two shrines dedicated to God Endovelicus, who have been primitive, located in Rock Mine and a second later this situated on top of the hill of S. Miguel da Mota, both in Alandroal county.

Sanctuary of Rocha da Mina

The Shrine of Mine Rock, is very simple and primitive, Manuel Calado describes the shrine as rock implanted in a rocky spur with abrupt slopes, the living area is greatly reduced. The stairs and floors carved in the rock are recurring elements in a relatively high number of pre-Roman shrines, some of which Romanized, and are often interpreted as sacrificial altars. This type of monuments is known in the Spanish Meseta and in northern Portugal, in areas that have experienced a stronger Celtic influences.

Sanctuary of São Miguel Mota

The sanctuary of San Miguel Mota, whose name is due to the fact that with the implementation of the Catholic religion on the peninsula pagan worship God Endovelicus have been replaced by the cult of St. Michael, it is a temple of the Roman era. As you know, the Romans throughout their Romanization process in addition to bring their culture and religion to people who would romanizando were also enjoying and absorbing the local cults. So Endovelicus, was also a god worshiped by the Romans as evidenced by ex-votos found in this sanctuary.

It seems that São Miguel Mota is an “invention” of the Romans, and that the Mine Rock is a sanctuary of a Celtic god.

Dominant on top of a hill, he joined the Guadiana river line of defense along with the castles of Juromenha, Alandroal, Monsaraz and Mourão.

The oldest documented information on the village date back to the reign of King Afonso III (1248-1279), when the royal knight-Gil Martins and his wife, Maria João, became a charter in 1262. Although it is not known a date need for the start of the castle construction, is believed to have taken place in this period, since the border of the Upper Guadiana qualified as strategic importance to the Portuguese crown, and given the interest shown by King Dinis (1279-1325) in the consolidation of this linde, still ensured by the castles of Elvas, Juromenha and Alandroal.

This is a very old Marian shrine, judging that may result from the pagan cults of Christianization, as close to the Terena village remain the ruins of the temple of the god Endovelicus. Historical references to this temple dating back to the thirteenth century, as the Cantigas de Santa Maria of King Alfonso X of Castile, there are some compositions dedicated to Santa Maria de Terena.

The temple is the fourteenth century work, possessing the characteristic of being a Portuguese rare example of fortified church has come largely intact today. The origin of the invocation Lady of Good News appears to be linked to the legend of Fermosíssima Maria (Dona Maria, Queen of Castile), the daughter of King Afonso IV of Portugal who went to the Portuguese court to ask your father that would help her husband in the Battle of Salado. Legend has it that the Queen stood on this site, in the vicinity of Terena, when he received the good news, there was born the invocation Good News. The cult remains very much alive, and this sanctuary scene of a popular pilgrimage that is celebrated the first weekend after the Easter week. The importance of this pilgrimage in the region is of such importance that the Monday of Pascoela (main day of the festival) is the municipal holiday Alandroal county.

The Sanctuary is a gem of religious architecture of the fourteenth century fortified church of cruciform plan, rare in Portugal [as defined by Mário Chicó, see the Flower Monastery of the Rose and the Church of the True Cross Marmelar], built on strong ashlar granite, crowned and Muslim battlements. In the northern facades, south and west, open up gates of pointed arches, Gothic and medieval narrow cracks, topped by defensive counters, with boulders (where it poured boiling liquids, in case of attack), decorated with real weapons stones Portuguese. The whole of the main facade is still ennobled by simple bell tower, added in the eighteenth century. The temple was originally from Avis Order of patronage, as grantees had after the Counts of Vila Nova (Portimão).