Andalusia’s minister for Culture visits Court of the Lions

To mark the International Day for Monuments and Sites, which this year has the cultural heritage of water as its theme, Paulino Plata, Government of Andalusia minister for Culture, visited the third and final phase of the works being carried out by the Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife (PAG) Conservation Department in the Court of the Lions, focussed primarily on renewing the water circuit and on the associated archaeological dig. This is the first time that archaeological methods are being implemented in the Palace, and it will allow for the documentation and preservation of elements and materials found.
Plata was accompanied by María del Mar Villafranca, general director of the Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife; Pedro Benzal, Government of Andalusia cultural delegate in Granada; Pedro Salmerón, head architect on the project, and Antonio Malpica, professor of Mediaeval History at the University of Granada, coordinator of the dig and a member of the PAG Technical Committee, along with architecture curator Franciso Lamolda and archaeology consultant Jesús Bermúdez.
To improve visitor information, an audiovisual module and three explanatory panels have been installed in Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife in the Palace of the Lions, where architect Pedro Salmerón explained some of the details of the works being undertaken to renovate the water circuit in the courtyard, which have unearthed the remains of an earlier construction to the famous Palace of the Lions. The Palace of the Lions was erected in the 14th century under Muhammad V and is referred to in documentary sources as the Palace of Riyad Al-Said or the Garden of Happiness.
Other findings by the team of archaeologists headed by Ángel González and José Domingo Lentisco include the foundations of the Hall of the Kings (Sala de los Reyes) located in the eastern part of the Palace, and constructed in the technique of rubble masonry with separating brick rows, which is characteristic of the reigns of Yusuf I and Muhammad V. Also located was a network of conduits under the eastern part of the Hall of the Kings, which was covered over when the current Palace was raised in the mid-14th century. The conduits were cut off by the foundations of the Hall, where a discharging arch was built.
Over the course of the works, abundant ceramic fragments and remains of building materials from the previous construction, probably built in the early years of the Nasrid dynasty, are also being found.
The focus of the project is on restoring the fountains and back channels throughout the Palace and renewing the distribution network. The water is also to be filtered and chlorinated, and treated to prevent it freezing in winter.

Hall of the Kings