The
decision to choose a strategic site for founding a village,
which was so customary in ancient civilizations, is strikingly
evident in the case of Archidona. Its urban district grew
up under the protection of the El Conjuro peak (1,012 metres)
and the Gracia and Las Grajas mountain ranges, which are
more than 900 metres high. The locality not only benefited
from, and suffered the consequences of, its watchtower-like
location overlooking an extensive territory but also from
its situation in the natural pass that linked the cities
of Granada and Seville.
 Traces
of the presence of prehistoric man in the region have been
found in several caves in the El Conjuro mountains but it
was the Phoenicians who, with their society already organized,
settled in these lands and started construction on the walls
of the city (to which there are later Carthaginian, Roman
and Arabic additions) and who called it Ascua. The Romans
changed the name to Arx Domina, which under the Arabs evolved
into Medina Arxiduna.
 From
the time of the expulsion of the Carthaginians Archidona
belonged to Andalusia and experienced a period of great
expansion, a bonanza that ended with the Germanic invasion.
The area began a period of recovery with the arrival of
the Arabs that would have it rank as one of the most important
cities in Andalusia during the first Islamic era, when it
came to be the capital of what is today the province of
Málaga. During the uprising headed by Omar Ben Hafsun
in the late ninth and early tenth centuries, Archidona lived
through some turbulent years, until in 907 the Emir Abd
Allah conquered it. Now under the Caliphate of Córdoba,
there were again years of prosperity with the development
of agriculture and commerce. It is noteworthy that it was
in Archidona in the year 756 that Abd al-Rahman I, the only
survivor of the Omeya dynasty, was crowned as the first
independent emir of Damascus. With the division of Muslim
power among the Taifas kingdoms and the many resultant confrontations,
however, ruin and abandonment overcame these lands until
in 1238 they came under the Nazarite kingdom of Granada.
 After
a period of relative calm came political stability and an
economic reawakening of the region, which lasted until the
first probing movements by the relentless Christian troops
who were preparing for the conquest of Granada after the
surrender of the adjacent territories. It would be another
half century after the fall of Antequera in 1410 before
Archidona finally passed into Christian hands on July 28,
1462. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries
the village began to form the urban layout, that with few
changes, we know today.
 Surface
Area: 187.1 square kilometres
Population: about 8,500
What the natives are called: Archidoneses
Monuments: the Ochavada plaza, Las Mínimas convent,
La Victoria church, La Cilla building, the hermitages of
Nuestra Señora de Gracia, San Antonio, and El Nazareno,
the Santa Ana church, Santo Domingo convent and the ruins
of the medieval castle.
Geographical Location: in the northeast part of the province
of Málaga, in the Antequera region and adjoining
the province of Granada. The village centre is 50 kilometres
from the city of Málaga and 20 from Antequera. It
sits 716 metres above sea level and the average annual rainfall
is nearly 600 litres per square metre. The average temperature
is 15º C.
Tourist Information: Town Hall, Paseo de la Victoria, 1
(29300). Telephone: 952 714 480; Fax: 952 714 165. Tourist
Office, Plaza Ochavada, 2. Telephone: 952 716 479.
 How
to Get There
The
N-331 (A-45) leads straight from Málaga to the A-92,
which is the route that must be followed towards Granada
to get to the A-6200 turning that leads to Archidona. |
|
