Last November, 28th, Casa Árabe came back to make a new conference organised by the Cultural Asociation “We are all archeology”, inside of the frame of the Conference Cycle “News of the Archeology in al-Ándalus. A glance from Qurtuba”. The architect Pedro Gurriarán Daza, specialized in urbanism and the rehabilitation of fortifications, presented an interesting and innovative paper entitled “The architecture of the Omayyads from Cordoba and their difusion in the periphery of Al-Ándalus”.
The Gurriarán Daza’s conference was focused in the different workshops of quarry workers in al-Ándalus during the Omayya period, having the main construction centers in the cities of Cordoba, Merica, Toledo and Zaragoza, he main urban centers of the Iberian Peninsula. Throughout the period there is a recovery of the stonework in different places, with its own peculiarities and styles.
In Zaragoza it is built by late blight, homogeneous and roman-like, working these quarryworkers for the highest bidder. In Merida, the Roman material will be used and its activity is of lower quality; this is parallel to Toledo, where the stoneworks are Mozarabic. However, in Córdoba the calcarenite stone quarries are opened and the cycle of the stonework is recovered both being works of greater quality and linked to the Omayyad power in the city. During the emirate, the stonemasons from cordoba work very little outside of cordoba, and only by neccessity, being used in the rest of the cities mentioned before with local workers and stonemasons.
Later, in the Abderramán III epoch in which he was the first as emir and after as caliph, looking to control the mediterranean coast and to confront the strait of Gibraltar. For the relaization of these large fortifications will be sent to the Córdoba’s stonemasons workshops and they also will seek to use the typical calcarenite stone from Córdoba in different places and after finishing their works, they will return to Córdoba.
