Sacavém

Sacavém (; ) is a city and former civil parish in the municipality of Loures, Lisbon District, Portugal. In 2013, the parish merged into the new parish Sacavém e Prior Velho. It is a few kilometers north-east of the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. The civil parish covers an area of , and included as of 2001 census a resident population of 17,659 inhabitants. The region is known for its famous ceramics industry.

== History == thumb|235px|left|The Roman bridge of Sacavém, drawn by Francisco de Holanda (c.1571) in Da fábrica que falece a cidade de Lisboa Due to its strategic location, at the intersection of several roads from the north and east connecting to Lisbon, Sacavém was an important settlement during periods of Portuguese History, with some evidence extending back to pre-history. The Portuguese historian Pinho Leal wrote, in his chorography Portugal Antigo & Moderno (Ancient & Modern Portugal), that "Sacavém is incontestably a very old settlement, and already existed in the time of the Romans". The oldest-known references date back to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic: three polished stone axes were discovered from the Bronze Age, and in the mid-1980s, excavations in the historical centre of the city revealed a cave with similar artifacts from this period.