In the 9th cen­tu­ry the flame of Chris­tian­i­ty was kept alive in the Iber­ian penin­su­la in the tiny King­dom of the Asturias. Here an inno­v­a­tive pre-Romanesque archi­tec­tur­al style was cre­at­ed that was to play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the devel­op­ment of the reli­gious archi­tec­ture of the penin­su­la. Its high­est achieve­ments can be seen in the church­es of San­ta Maria del Naran­co, San Miguel de Lil­lo, San­ta Cristi­na de Lena, the Cama­ra San­ta and San Julian de los Pra­dos, in and around the ancient cap­i­tal city of Oviedo. Asso­ci­at­ed with them is the remark­able con­tem­po­rary hydraulic engi­neer­ing struc­ture known as La Fon­cal­a­da.