Madrid's history books rewritten

The past is changing. The history of Madrid is suddenly being rewritten. After digging for five years in the area around the Royal Palace, archeologist Esther Andréu is adamant: "Madrid as a city was born under Christian rule, in the 12th century, and not during Arab times as previously thought."

Although its Muslim origins have been confirmed, the "Mayrit" (to give the city its Arab name) that goes back to the ninth century was nothing more than a military barracks, not an actual town. Andréu has reached this conclusion after analyzing the remains of six medieval homes dug up in the last five years - the oldest dwellings found to date in the area where Madrid sprang up. Nothing similar dating to Arab rule has been found.

"We have found the oldest remains of Madrid's origins as a city"

"The town sprang up in the 12th century, not in the ninth century"

This discovery was made possible through a project to build the state-owned Museum of Royal Collections on a spot between the Royal Palace and the Almudena Cathedral, in the heart of the capital. Digging in this area has yielded "a major archeological site and extraordinary results," according to Andréu.

The digs were a mandatory step prior to building the museum, and experts were expecting to find significant new information at the site - but certainly not of this magnitude.

"We have found the oldest remains of Madrid's origins as a city. With these, we can begin to understand how it was shaped," says Andréu, who is in charge of the dig. Excavations were carried out in two stages, the first between 1999 and 2000 and the second between 2007 and 2010. These most recent vestiges, which go back to the late 12th and early 13th centuries, were located in two separate areas: one beneath Plaza de la Almudena - the space separating the Armory gate from the Cathedral - and another near the west wing of the temple.

The six medieval constructions unearthed by Andréu's team overturn the hitherto official story of how Madrid originated under the rule of Emir Mohammed I, for whom a park is named on Cuesta de la Vega, located near the site.

"The town sprang up in the 12th century, after Alfonso VI's conquest (in 1085), not in the ninth century," says Andréu, who has carried out the most extensive digs in this part of Madrid of any archeologist. "From the Muslim period, besides remains of the wall and vestiges of a building for a corps-de-garde, what we have found so far are indications of agricultural activity, presumably carried out by the people stationed at the garrison - things like water wells. But no housing structures have been found."

Under the Plaza de la Almudena, archeologists have found the remains of what preliminary studies say are four houses and two streets. Two more houses turned up near the cathedral, as well as two other streets. In some of the homes the walls were still standing, while in others there was nothing left but the foundations. But they all had something in common: they were located near a ninth- to 10th-century wall that also turned up during the dig. Experts were expecting to find this 70-meter wall, as its presence was already known about. Also near the cathedral, archeologists found three towers, one of which was still whole, and remains of four more under the square. These will eventually be put on view inside the museum, which is being designed by the architects Luis Moreno Mansilla and Emilio Tuñón.

Some of the archeological remains will be left on view where they are. For now, these items are being protected with plastic coverings and metal fences while museum construction is underway. Once work is completed, visitors will have views over a 1,000-square-meter area under the plaza and another one half that size near the Almudena cathedral. Both spaces will be accessible through the Noble Hall of the future museum, which will hold the tapestries collected by the Crown over the centuries.

"It's like visiting your own origins. The weight of the earth has been lifted in order to make way for the weight of history," said one of the architects, Tuñón.

The site unveils information about a Madrid where Christians, Muslims and Jews lived side by side. "We found an alfiz [an arch molding] with an inscription in Arabic that says: 'Power belongs to Allah'," notes Andréu, adding that they found ceramic remains that suggest an Arab past. "We also came across remains of a dining set to be used on the [Jewish] Sabbath, which we were able to identify through its decoration and the type of enamel used."

But there are even older remains in the area, which archeologists have recently unearthed. One is a Visigoth burial site from the eighth century, "the oldest grave found in the city," and there were even ceramic remains from the Carpetanos, a pre-Roman people who dwelled in this part of Spain around the first century BC.

"All these findings add to Madrid's past," says Andréu. "Even if it is a very simple past."