Muslim Walls of Madrid

Those that once existed near number 12 Calle de Bailén were lost during the construction of an apartment block, although some walls were integrated into its foundations.

The remodelling of the Plaza de Oriente, completed in 1996 during the mayoral term of José María Álvarez del Manzano, led to the discovery and subsequent disappearance of numerous remains.

[1] Between 1999 and 2000, another section was uncovered, about 70 metres (230 ft) long, under the Plaza de la Armería, formed by the main façades of the Royal Palace and Almudena Cathedral.

It was excavated during the building of the Royal Collections Gallery (to open in 2023) and may correspond to the Puerta de la Sagra, one of the gates to the walled enclosure.

[7] It defended the almudaina or Muslim citadel of Mayrit (first name of the city), located on the site currently occupied by the Royal Palace.

The historian Jerónimo de Quintana echoed these accounts in the following text of the 17th century: "very strong of masonry and mortar, raised and thick, twelve feet [almost three and half meters] in width, with large cubes, towers gatehouses and moats".

[8] The mission of the fortified complex was to monitor the path of the Manzanares, which connected the steppes of the Sierra de Guadarrama with Toledo, threatened by the incursions of the Christian kingdoms of the north peninsula.

[10] In the 10th century, the caliph of Córdoba Abd-ar-Rahman III ordered the reinforcement of the Walls, after suffering several situations of danger from the advance of the Christian King Ramiro II of León in 932.

'Saint Mary the Great', was found in 1085[12] (three centuries after the Christians hid it from Muslims) in the conquest of the city by King Alfonso VI of León and Castile, in one of the hubs of the Walls, near the gate Puerta de la Vega, and placed in the old mosque, for the worship and devotion of the Court and the people of Madrid.

The Muslim Walls of Madrid protected a fortified complex, in which there were three preeminent buildings: the alcázar, the mosque and the house of the emir or governor.

[13] The Walls started directly from the alcázar, from its southern part, with the other three sides of the building uncovered, because the rough terrain did not require a greater fortification there.

To the west, the cliffs located on the plain of Manzanares river constituted a natural defense of the alcázar; a similar function was served by the ravines and gorges of the brook del Arenal, to the north and to the east.

This was built in the 11th century, before the conquest of Madrid by the king Alfonso VI of León and Castile, and integrated into the Christian Walls as Albarrana tower.

Outside the Walls, there were different public lands dedicated to leisure and equestrian games (almusara), plus a Muslim neighborhood or medina, and a Christian suburb or mozarabs.

From there rise ashlars of limestone, providing a new finding that the track is of al-Andalusian origin, because the materials follow the style of Cordoban rigging, which is a constant in the centuries in which life unfolds in Madrid.

This was built in 1970s,[18] and though by then it already was an Artistic Historical Monument, two sections of the Walls and a tower were destroyed -one to make site to the building, and other to give way to its tenants-.

The incomprehensible destruction was accompanied by some documentation work, and today is known to have a width of 2.5 meters -a little narrower than the portion that has already been seen- and offered a possibility that can not usually be: the dissection of the wall.

As an area in which it is impossible to make any kind of archaeological tasting, the specialist Alain Kermovan traced the route through radioelectric detectors, without lifting the pavement.

The Instituto Arqueológico de Madrid, in the sixties and seventies, performs some tasks aimed at protecting the first and second enclosure, since both had been declared "monuments" in the fifties.

Since 1985 it has been excavated on the Cuesta de la Vega, placing on value the most important section of this enclosure setting the park called Muhamed I, in honor of the founder of the city.

Overview of the remains preserved on Cuesta de la Vega, near the crypt of the La Almudena Cathedral .
Detail drawing by Anton van den Wyngaerde in 1562, in which is seen the Muslim Walls of Madrid, from the disappeared Alcázar to the left, to the gate Puerta de la Vega, to the right.
Drawing of the Royal Alcázar of Madrid of J. Cornelius Vermeyenen, made around 1534-1535. On the left side it can be observed that part of the Muslim Walls, in the 16th century, were in a visible state of deterioration.
Another view of the remains in the park of Mohamed I
Detail of the gate Puerta de la Vega, in the plan of Pedro Teixeira , of 1656
Remains of the Muslim Walls of Madrid, in the Cuesta de la Vega , integrated within the Park of Mohamed I.
Construction of Royal Collections Museum (2008), where remains of the Muslim Wall were found