Banos del Alcazar Califal - Cordoba

In 1903, by chance , the remains of some Arab baths were found in the Campo de los Santos Mártires, which were buried months later. Between 1961 and 1964, a group of Cordoban historians brought this structure to light, proving its great importance.

These baths or hammams, adjacent to the now-vanished Umayyad Alcazar , to which they certainly belonged, may have been the city's most important baths. Washings and body cleansing were an essential part of Muslim life. They were part of prayer and a social ritual.

They were built under the caliphate of Al-Hakem II and form a group of rooms with carved walls. They are enclosed by vaults (in which the characteristic star-shaped skylights appear), supported by ultra-semicircular arches on marble capitals and columns.

In the 11th to 13th centuries, they were again used by the Almoravids and Almohads , as evidenced by the atauric-motif plasterwork and epigraphic bands of the period preserved in the archaeological museum.

Willem Vandenameele