Charles Binns - Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography

Antequera

Antequera lies 47 km north of the city of Málaga, at the foot of the mountain ranges El Torcal and El Arco Calizo Chimenea. It overlooks the fertile valley bounded to the south by the Sierra de los Torcales, and to the north by the river Guadalhorce. It occupies a commanding position, while the remains of its walls, and of a fine Moorish castle on a rock that overhangs the town, show how admirably its natural defences were supplemented by art.

On the northern outskirts of the city there are two Bronze Age burial mounds (barrows or dolmens) the Dólmen de Menga and Dólmen de Viera, dating from the 3rd millennium BCE. They are the largest such structures in Europe. The larger one, Dólmen de Menga, is twenty-five metres in diameter and four metres high, and was built with thirty-two megaliths, the largest weighing about 180 tonnes. After completion of the chamber (which probably served as a grave for the ruling families) and the path leading into the center, the stone structure was covered with earth and built up into the hill that can be seen today. When the grave was opened and examined in the 19th century, archaeologists found the skeletons of several hundred people inside. The Dólmen del Romeral, which dates from the early 2nd millennium (about 1800 BCE), is outside the city. A large number of smaller stones were used in its construction.

In the last third of the 1st millennium BCE, the Iberian peninsula became part of the Roman Empire. As in many other places in Andalusia, the current city plan and the name originate from when Spain was part of the Roman Empire; the Latin name of the city was Antikaria. Under the Romans, the city continued to be an important commercial centre, especially known for the quality of its olive oil. The excavated Roman baths can be seen in the southeast part of the city. The Romans were later supplanted by a succession of invading tribes, leading eventually to domination by the Visigoths.

In the year 711 a tribe of Berbers out of North Africa (Moors) invaded Spain. By about 716, Antikaria was influenced by Moorish culture, tradition and architecture, and received a new name: Medina Antaquira.

The Moorish state was known for its religious tolerance, and lasted until 1212, when a coalition of Christian kings drove them from Central Spain in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. Over the next few years the dominant Almohad dynasty was defeated and Moorish Al-Andalus greatly reduced in strength. Medina Antaquira, which at that time had a population of about 2,600, became one of the northern cities of the remaining Nasrid kingdom of Granada and an important border town. To defend against the Catholic troops from the northern kingdoms, fortifications were built, and a castle was erected overlooking the city: the Alcazaba. Today only a few parts of the walls and some towers can be seen, including a tower called Torre del Homenaje.

For about two hundred years, Medina Antaquira was repeatedly attacked by Christian kings during the Reconquista, and on September 16, 1410 an army led by Ferdinand I of Aragon conquered the city. This gave Ferdinand, who was crowned King of Aragon in 1412, the title "Ferdinand of Antequera" (Don Fernando de Antequera), and the main street still carries his name: Calle Infante Don Fernando.

After Antequera became part of the Kingdom of Castile, the Muslims were either murdered or driven out. The city became a Catholic fortress against the Nasrid kingdom of Granada, and a base for continuing conquest. After Granada, the last Moorish city, capitulated in 1492 Antequera began to recover from the centuries of fighting, and the population increased from 2,000 to almost 15,000 in twenty years.

Antequera became an important commercial town at the crossroads between Málaga to the south, Granada to the east, Córdoba to the north and Seville to the west. Because of its location, its flourishing agriculture, and the work of its craftsmen, all contributing to the cultural growth of the city, Antequera was called the "Heart of Andalusia" by the early 16th century. During this time the townscape also changed. Mosques and houses were torn down, and new churches and houses built in their place. The oldest church in Antequera, the late Gothic Iglesia San Francisco, was built around the year 1500.

In 1504, the humanist university "Real Colegiata de Santa María la Mayor" was founded, and it became a meeting place for important writers and scholars of the Spanish Renaissance. A school of poets arose during the 16th century that included Pedro Espinosa, Luis Martín de la Plaza, and Cristobalina Fernández de Alarcón. A school of sculpture produced artists who were mainly employed on the many churches built, and who were in demand in Seville, Málaga and Córdoba and the surrounding areas. The newly-built churches included San Sebastián in the city center and the largest and most splendid of the city, Real Colegiata de Santa María, with its richly decorated mannerist façade.

Still more churches and convents were built into the 18th century (today there are 32 in the city altogether), as were palaces for the members of the aristocracy and the wealthier citizens in the Spanish Baroque style.

Antequera's prosperity slowly came to a close at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th. Spain had to accept the loss of its American colonies and lost a number of crucial military conflicts in Europe. That led to a deep economic crisis, which in some parts of the country led people to turn to bartering. Church, aristocracy and the upper middle class — the great landowners — who had been the clients and sponsors of the creative arts, lost most of their fortunes and could not afford to build more churches or palaces.

Starting from the mid-18th century, Spain underwent a series of reforms, in particular a land reform and the reduction of the power of the Church (the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767) that produced a slow economic recovery. In Antequera, textile production became the main industry. In 1804, yellow fever caused a setback, as well as the Napoleonic wars which broke out shortly after. In the early 20th century, Antequera's textile industry suffered another serious crisis.

It was only in the 1960s, when the nearby Costa del Sol developed into an international tourist hotspot, that Antequera experienced another economic upswing. Today the city is an important tourist and cultural center, not only on a regional scale.

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