The Medina: The Old City of Cordoba

Abstract

This chapter deals in detail with the interior of the walled perimeter of Cordoba. The medina occupies the space of the ancient Roman and late antique city and reuses some of its main constructions and infrastructures, such as the city walls or the sewerage. Combining written sources and archaeological findings, this paper aims to collect up-to-date knowledge about the walls, gates, roads, centers of political and religious power, residences, baths, mosques, and water supply, etc. The quality and entity of the residential architecture shows that the medina is a privileged space, where the headquarters of power, the residences of the authorities, and the palaces of the members of the Umayyad family circle were situated. Based on this information, this paper also attempts to reconstruct the layout of the streets of the Umayyad medina, whose current image is the result of a long and uninterrupted process of evolution and change. It is also the consequence of the densification of the space, which occurred in times of political instability.