History of Alvor

The location of Portus Hannibalis in Alvor is the hypothesis advanced by André Resende (Antiquities the Lusitania, 1593) due to the identification of Old ruins of Alvor, which attributed to the Carthaginians.

Portus Hannibalis may have been the waiting port for the port of Sagres, in the sense of the etymology of Terçanabal (dársen'Anibal *)

The crossing of the Holy Promontorium (possibly the Cape St. Vincent) would require, as happened to modern times, the long waits in a port in the western, until the winds allow a the broad outline of the cable, avoiding not only the West hand, before the cable, as the North after their crossing.
The use of Sagres Bay as a port-of-waiting in antiquity was thus almost inevitable, because to their unique conditions at Cape St. Vincent. Its control would be of strategic importance primary access route to the Atlantic, including the valley of the Tagus (the admirals in 212 BC Carthaginian Mago Barca and Hasdrubal Gisco invernaram their squads, respectively, and in the Algarve Tagus: Polybius, Histories, X, 7.5).

As the port of Alvor the most sheltered and least exposed is very likely to have been the Portus Hannibalis location.

According to the excavations carried out by Teresa Gamito Ipses Alvor was the old proto-historic population and commercial center of the utmost importance in pre-Roman times.
As far as it is  known, Ipses / Ipsa enjoys the privilege of being one of only two towns in the Algarve (Along with Kilibe / Cilpes) referred to in the Geography of Artemidorus of Ephesus, writing about 100 BC.
800 years later, is still the only place in the Algarve identified as the limit of the diocese Visigothic of Ossonoba in the document known as Divisio Wambae.

During the Roman Empire (III century / BC) was the name of Alvor was Ipses. Ipses (Alvor) and Salacia (Alcacer do Sal) are the only sites Proto-Historic Atlantic Coast who coined money with the effigy of Melqart / Hercules.

The "Romanization" of the iconography of coinage Ipses reinforces the hypothesis of a Roman military base, a naval base.
The town had, as now, two ports that surrounded the oppidum, but that would then be considerably more extensive. The topography indicates that the southern port (Ribeira future), greater dimensions and connected to the gates of a Roman town, the wharf would be military, defended by oppidum castellum and a possible plateau in the south cliff. Between oppidum the West, the Roman town on the east and the two ports to the north and south sets up a portela in whose center and highest point lies the current Church. The space includes the Ribeira district, the platform and access around the church and the whole band small valley between it and the Old Town.
This zone defines an area of modelarmente cannabae port, market area, fishing and port activities to be shared by three local communities: the indigenous ipsenses the Roman occupation force and the merchants and navigators of other origins, scale or technical attracted by the business opportunities offered by the Roman barracks.
Was this collective space that would raise the temple dedication maritime Melqart / Astarte, dyad sites identified in mints.
The predominant position and central space, where one would expect the location of the temple indigenous, later Romanized, corresponds precisely to the Church.

With the Islamic occupation (century VII / VIII) Ipses was renamed as Al-Bur.

From this period of Islamic occupation there is very little historical information but still there many traces of Arab buildings and we can still observe that agriculture was highly developed.
There is no documentation on the Mozarabic church likely to exist in place of the current.
In 1189, the village of Al-Bur is notorious for the massacre and destruction by the crusaders just before the 1st conquest of Silves. It is known, through reports of the Crusaders, who here were looted huge amounts of gold and silver. This, coupled with the fact that it's been the location where the slaughter was greatest, suggests that Al-bur would be richer and the location powerful in the region.

The town was conquered by the Arabs Almohads D. Palo Peres Correia in 1250.
Here he died on 25 October 1495, the King of Portugal D. John II. Shortly after D. Manuel raised it to the town the county seat, which would lose status in the early nineteenth century. The small municipality was constituted only by the village and had, in 1801, 1288 inhabitants.

Alvor, like many other cities in the Algarve, had to be rebuilt after severe earthquakes 1532 and 1755, losing so many of the historical remains that might allow better knowledge of his past.

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