Arraiolos () is a municipality in

Évora District Évora District ( pt, Distrito de Évora ) is located in Alentejo, in southern Portugal. The district capital is the city of Évora. Municipalities The district is composed by 14 municipalities: * Alandroal * Arraiolos * Borba * Estremoz * � ...

in Portugal. The population in 2011 was 7,363,Instituto Nacional de Estatística
/ref> in an area of 683.75 km². The town of Arraiolos has 3,351 inhabitants. The present Mayor is Silvia Pinto, elected by the

Unitary Democratic Coalition The Unitary Democratic Coalition ( pt, CDU – Coligação Democrática Unitária, PCP–PEV) is an electoral and political coalition between the Portuguese Communist Party ( pt, Partido Comunista Português or PCP) and the Ecologist Party "The G ...

. The town is famous for its castle and its embroidered wool rugs and carpets. Arraiolos rugs have been made since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

.Fleming, John &

Hugh Honour Hugh Honour FRSL (26 September 1927 – 19 May 2016) was a British art historian, known for his writing partnership with John Fleming. Their ''A World History of Art'' (a.k.a. ''The Visual Arts: A History''), is now in its seventh edition and H ...

. (1977) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Decorative Arts. '' London:

Allen Lane Sir Allen Lane (born Allen Lane Williams; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970) was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fict ...

, p. 35. In October 2003,

Jorge Sampaio Jorge Fernando Branco de Sampaio (; 18 September 1939 – 10 September 2021) was a Portuguese lawyer and politician who was the 18th president of Portugal from 1996 to 2006. A member of the Socialist Party, a party which he led between 1989 a ...

, the then President of Portugal, invited the Presidents of Finland, Germany, as well as of soon-to-be EU members Hungary, Latvia and Poland to Arraiolos in order to discuss the consequences of the

2004 enlargement of the European Union The largest expansion of the European Union (EU), in terms of territory, number of states, and population took place on 1 May 2004. The simultaneous accessions concerned the following countries (sometimes referred to as the "A10" countries): ...

and plans for a Constitution for Europe. Subsequent meetings of non-executive presidents of European Union member states have been dubbed '' Arraiolos meetings''.

History

A hoard of prehistoric objects, including a

trapezoid A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a convex quadrilateral in Eu ...

-shaped plaque with

geometric Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...

design and three pottery vessels, was excavated from a

tumulus A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or '' kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones ...

or barrow in Arraiolos at the beginning of the twentieth century. They are now kept at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

Parishes

Administratively, the municipality is divided into 5 civil parishes (''

freguesias ''Freguesia'' (), usually translated as "parish" or "civil parish", is the third-level administrative subdivision of Portugal, as defined by the 1976 Constitution. It is also the designation for local government jurisdictions in the former Port ...

''): * Arraiolos * Gafanhoeira e Sabugueiro * Igrejinha * São Gregório e Santa Justa * Vimieiro

Notable people

* Joaquim Heliodoro da Cunha Rivara (1809 in Arraiolos – 1879 in Évora) a physician, professor, intellectual and politician * Francisco José Caeiro (1890 in Vimieiro – 1976) a politician and former Minister and law professor.

Gallery

File:Arraiolos2.jpg, A house in Arraiolos. Image:Arraiolos1.jpg, The local castle. Image:Castelo de Arraiolos3.jpg, View of the countryside from the castle.

References

External links