Cordoba region - Cordoba enterteinments - Spain
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Cordoba Information: SORROUNDING AREA |
 Six kilometres west of Cordoba is the palatial city of Madinat al Zahra, in the foothills of Sierra Morena facing the gently rolling plains of the campiña. The construction of a new city, as the caliph's personal residence and the central administration of the Umayyad state, was very much in keeping with an ideology and a concept of propaganda linked to the tradition of the East. Despite the fact that the city lasted little over seventy years (940-1013), it left a prodigious mark among Muslims and Christians. alike. It was destroyed as a result of the bloody civil unrest that put an end to the caliphate, and was repeatedly sacked and looted up to the early twentieth century. It measures 1 ,500 metres long and 745 metres wide, covering a area of 112 hectares. The main features were the alcazar or fortress and the gardens that were created between the various buildings. The alcazar, built on the highest point of the terrain as a symbol of dominion, was to the west, and the Viziers' house, where justice was administered, was to the east. To reach these, it was necessary to pass through a portico gallery of fifteen arches, measuring a little over a hundred metres, part of which has since been restored. Contemporary to the Viziers' Room is the Salon Rico, the Room of Riches, also known as the Salon del Trono or Throne Room, the structure, decoration and dynamism of which inspired awe in all who saw it. This was the area used for major religious festivals and where the caliph would entertain and impress visiting ambassadors. The room's decoration began with a beautiful relief of the tree of life at the bottom (part of which has survived), continued with a geometric design of stars in the upper frieze, and included a view of the stylised world of the nearby gardens, and the real world of the campiña plains. It was the affirmation of the complete dominion of the caliph. Despite the field of ruins, the archaeologists have managed to show the solidity of the construction and the richness of its decoration, by means of exquisitely sculpted alabaster panels, bases and capitals with a honeycomb pattern, little bronze statues of fawns and Roman sarcophagi used as fountains. In the same area, the Hermitage of Cordoba makes for one of the most panoramic and varied vantage-points in Andalusia, as well as being a place with a memory of a wild and picturesque Christian spirituality. |
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