CARMEN DE PEÑAPARTIDA

The Council of the Alhamabra will oversee the refurbishment and restoration activities.

The Carmen de Peñapartida, also known as the Carmen de los Catalanes, came into the ownership of the Alhambra and Generalife in 2002 and has a rich cultural heritage linked to the Alhambra and to the city of Granada.

It has two surviving mediaeval towers, a water system that extended down towards the old Antequeruela quarter of the city, a “corral for captives” which consisted of large holes that were dug into the earth and used partly as a prison and partly as a cemetery.

Investigation in the Carmen de Peñapartida offers the chance to study and evaluate a rich cultural heritage with links to the Alhambra and to the city of Granada. These are the objectives that the Council of the Alhambra and Generalife sought to achieve in two phases of archaeological prospections within the current boundaries of this property.

The archaeological interventions in different areas uncovered large numbers of graves of varying kinds, ranging from very simple ones (pits dug out of the natural terrain) to other more complex structures which may have been the burial sites of people of high social standing.

The distribution and dispersion of the funeral complexes suggests that almost all of the current area of the Carmen was originally used as a burial ground. Investigators also discovered that there were more remains associated with this necropolis outside the study area towards the side of the hill. It is therefore difficult to establish precise boundaries for this cemetery.

Lastly we should emphasize that the use of this area as a burial ground predates at least in part its use as silos and dungeons.