Carmona, Spain

Carmona is a town in south-western Spain, in Andalusia, Seville province, 43 km northeast of Seville on the Guadalquivir River with 28 793 inhabitants ( 1 January 2013).

Geography

Carmona was built on the Alcores, a mountain range in the central plain of Andalusia, from where the Sierra Morena to the north can overlook the south to the summit of San Cristobal. Carmona dominates the fertile Vega del Corbones.

Economy

Economically Carmona lives next tourism of wine, olive oil, grain and livestock trade. The annual fair, which is held in Carmona in April, is to watch a good opportunity, the costumes and habits of southern Spain.

Attractions

The citadel of Carmona, now in ruins, was formerly the most important fort of Peter the Cruel and home to a spacious palace within its walls, now the attractive Parador " Alcázar del Rey Don Pedro ," which decorated in the Moorish castle of the 14th century is and looks far into the country. The main access to the city is the old Moorish city gate on the road to Cordoba, which is based on a Roman design. Parts of the old monastery of San Teodomir based on Moorish architecture; the tower of the church of San Pedro is an imitation of the Giralda of Seville.

History

Thanks to its strategic location Carmona is one of the oldest towns of Andalusia, continuously inhabited since prehistoric times. Camona was in ancient times one of the most prosperous trading centers. Significant prehistoric finds from the Neolithic Age, as the Bell Beaker, come from Carmona. Carthage Carthaginian built in Kar - Hammon a fortified colony, which dominated the lower valley of the River Guadalquivir and has therefore secured continuously by them. Carmona, Roman Carmo, was the most powerful city in the late Roman Spain in the time of Julius Caesar, in which it reached its greatest prosperity and to mint coins. The Seville Gate, a bridge, the necropolis and the amphitheater are visible signs of Roman rule. The Via Iulia Augusta, which was called in the Middle Ages El Arrecife, ran through Carmona.

With the conquest of Spain by the Moors 711 Carmona also came under their rule. They increased the importance of the city yet, by surrounding the city with a city wall and decorated with fountains and palaces. 1247 Fernando III conquered. of Castile, the city and put them under his motto Sicut Lucifer lucet in Aurora, sic in Wandalia Carmona ( As the morning star shines at dusk, it seems Carmona in Andalusia). Pedro el Cruel made ​​the enlarged Alcázar de la Puerta de Marchena his favorite palace. His sons inhabited the palace. During the reign of Juan II and Enrique IV Carmona was one of the venues of the rivalry of two aristocratic families Ponce de León Guzmán. 1630 Carmona received city rights.

Archaeological Site

The Roman necropolis, which was probably the middle and especially the upper class subject, many in the rock contains whipped grave chambers with niches for urns and occasionally spaces that have stone seats ( triclinia ). The use of the necropolis is dated AD to about the 1st and 2nd centuries. At that time, the most common form of burial was cremation. In a cave carved into the rock of the dead special gravediggers were burned on pyres. Occasionally served these pyres as grave in which made ​​the urn and was then closed with square stones, bricks or stone slab. The grave was covered with earth and a grave stone was about the name and place of death of the deceased information.

Is prevalent in Carmona a family mausoleum, consisting of an underground grave chamber was accessed via a stairwell. The generally rectangular grave chamber has about eye level all round niches for urns. Below that is a bank for offerings. Some grave chambers were closed with a door, of which remains have been found. Others were probably closed by a grave stone.

Two spectacular grave plants deserve special mention: the elephant grave got its name from a sandstone figure here found a prominent place. The grave complex consists of a chancel, which was the worship of the deities Cibeles and Attis, whose worship in Rome gained an enormous importance. The god Attis, who died and rose again each year, learned in Carmona special devotion, as evidenced by further discoveries in the necropolis. This became a religious Carmona independence, demonstrating its cultural relations with the Phoenician- Carthaginian cultures of the Middle East and the Mediterranean. In addition to this deity, there is a female mother goddess, the ruler of life and death, and personification of the divine nature, which was represented by an upright, oval stone. From the elephant figure, however, went since their discovery of such a large fascination that it became the symbol of eternity in this grave system. In addition to the chancel the grave plant a kitchen, a cistern and a dining room features. Apparently a Gedenkmahl was held at the grave system regularly to commemorate the deceased.

The second particularly noteworthy mausoleum, Servilia - grave, itself already distinguished by his football -field-sized proportions by all the other grave sites. It was created in the Hellenistic style. To one of the rock struck, columned courtyard, which was surmounted by a gallery, branch off two storeys different luxuriously decorated, painted rooms. There is a covered grave chamber with a large trapezoidal hall and a pointed dome, in the original was apparently the sculpture of Servilia, who represented probably the richest and most powerful family of government officials Carmona in the Augustan period on the end face of the column courtyard.

Discovery history

1881 an extensive Roman necropolis on the outskirts of the city was discovered on the road to Seville and excavated by Juan Fernández López and the English archaeologist George Bonsor. In the same year, an amphitheater and a group of other tombs, all found in the first four centuries after Christ, near the Originalnekropole and set up a small museum of the Archaeological Society Carmona, the mosaics, inscriptions, portraits and other antiques shows.

Sons and daughters of the town

  • Javier Ramírez (born 1978 ), cyclist
166183
de