Antequera
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ANTEQUERA
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Size - 810 square kilometres. Population - approx 43,000
Tourist Information: Tourism Office, 7 San Sebastián Plaza (29200). Telephone : +34 952 702 505 |
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The very first thing the eye beholds as you start down towards Antequera along the N-331 expressway is a broad meadowland like an immense tapestry of different shades of green, or ochre depending on the season of your visit. To the right, the evocative Peña de los Enamorados (Lovers' Rock) with its legend of a doomed romance; straight ahead, gentle hills surround the meadows, and to the left, below the crest of the El Torcal massif, Christian towers and Arab walls stand out from the brilliant white of the town.
Even so, the initial panoramic view does not reveal the treasure of monumental sites contained in Antequera, where every corner reverberates with a thousand-year-old Mediterranean culture forged by all the western civilisations.  |
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The first settlers in this region left archaeological testimony of immense importance: the dolmens of Viera, Menga and Romeral, gigantic burial structures erected in the Bronze Age.
It is believed that from this date forward these lands were always populated, among other reasons because its geographic location – in the territorial centre of Andalucia - is the natural crossroads between upper and lower Andalucia, making it possible for Iberians, Tartessians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians to pass through and settle here. Traces of the latter, in fact, have been found at Cerro León, where it seems that the battle between Hasdrubal's Carthaginians and the Roman legions took place. |
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The city owes its present name to the Romans.
It derives from the ancient Antikaria, a name that would be retained by the Arabs who, under the command of Abdelaziz Ben Muza, conquered it in the eighth century. Many traces of the Roman era remain, both in Antequera proper and in the nearby towns of Arastepi and Singilia Barba, which are considered among the most important of Roman Málaga. Bathhouses, villas, sculptures, ceramics, mosaics, and column shafts and capitals from the Roman period have been turning up throughout Antequera in recent years as clear proof of its ancient splendour. The Arabs extended and strengthened the town, building the Alcazaba fort and surrounding the Medina with a wall. |
It became a strategic point after the capture of Seville and Jaén by the Christian troops who, under the command of the Infante (Crown Prince) Don Fernando, finally entered Antequera in 1410.
After being granted several royal favours, Antequera began to experience growth that would reach its peak in the second half of the sixteenth century and that in some ways was maintained until the eighteenth.
During this long interval, the town was enriched with an extraordinary artistic heritage – primarily churches and convents but also outstanding secular structures - that is responsible for the present appearance of its historic urban centre.
An epidemic of yellow fever and the Napoleonic invasion decimated the town at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when it was already showing signs of exhaustion, but with those bad times behind it a new and vigorous middle class appeared, supported by a thriving textile industry, that gave new life to its economy and society.
This powerful industrial sector was to succumb in the twentieth century and it would not be until the last third of this century that the town, now linked by a good transportation and communications network with the rest of Andalucia, again entered a period of clear economic expansion, and it is still in full swing.
After being granted several royal favours, Antequera began to experience growth that would reach its peak in the second half of the sixteenth century and that in some ways was maintained until the eighteenth.
During this long interval, the town was enriched with an extraordinary artistic heritage – primarily churches and convents but also outstanding secular structures - that is responsible for the present appearance of its historic urban centre.
An epidemic of yellow fever and the Napoleonic invasion decimated the town at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when it was already showing signs of exhaustion, but with those bad times behind it a new and vigorous middle class appeared, supported by a thriving textile industry, that gave new life to its economy and society.
This powerful industrial sector was to succumb in the twentieth century and it would not be until the last third of this century that the town, now linked by a good transportation and communications network with the rest of Andalucia, again entered a period of clear economic expansion, and it is still in full swing.
