Spain Guide
Andalucía
Medina Azahara
Address: Seven kilometres northwest of Córdoba
Telephone: 957 355 506
Opening time: April– Sept Tues– Sat 10am–8.30pm, Sun 10am–2pm; Oct– March Tues– Sat 10am–2pm & 5–6.30pm, Sun 10am–1.30pm; confirm winter hours with site
Price: €1.50, free with EU passport
The vast and rambling ruins of Medina Azahara are what remains of a palace complex built on a dream scale by Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III. Naming it after a favourite, az-Zahra (the Radiant), he spent one-third of the annual state budget on its construction each year from 936 until his death in 961. The site, almost 2km long by 900m wide, stretched over three descending terraces. In addition to the palace buildings, it contained a zoo, an aviary, four fishponds, three hundred baths, four hundred houses, weapons factories and two barracks for the royal guard.
Medina Azahara was a perfect symbol of the western caliphate's extent and greatness, but it was to last for less than a century before being plundered and burned by Berber mercenaries in 1010. For centuries, the site continued to be looted for building materials; parts, for instance, were used in the Seville Alcázar. But in 1944 excavations unearthed the remains of a crucial part of the palace – the Royal House, where guests were received and meetings of ministers held. This has been meticulously reconstructed and, though still fragmentary, its main hall must rank among the greatest of all Moorish rooms. It has a different kind of stuccowork from that at Granada or Seville – closer to natural and animal forms in its intricate Syrian Hom (Tree of Life) motifs.
The reconstruction of the palace gives a scale and focus to the site. Elsewhere, you have little more than foundations to fuel your imaginings, amid an awesome area of ruins, hidden beneath bougainvillea and rustling with cicadas. Perhaps the most obvious of the outbuildings yet excavated is the mosque, just beyond the Royal House, which sits at an angle to the rest of the buildings in order to face Mecca.