Granada and the Alhambra: A brief description of the ancient city of Granada, with a particular account of the Moorish palaceCalvert, Albert Frederick
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Granada and the Alhambra: A brief description of the ancient city of Granada, with a particular account of the Moorish palace
Calvert, Albert Frederick
Alhambra (Granada, Spain); Art -- Spain -- Granada; Granada (Spain) -- Description and travel
Between this garden and the court of the Alberca lie the baths--those
indispensable adjuncts to the Muslim household--most skilfully and
artistically restored by Contreras. The plan is that usually followed
throughout the East. Passing through the _Sala de las Cámas_ or Unrobing
Room, where, from a high gallery the songs of the odalisques were wafted
down to the sultan reclining in one of the alcoves, we enter the Sala de
Baños, with its white marble bath and pavement of glazed tiles. This
corresponds with the apartment called by the Arabs, the hararah, or
vapour-bath, and described in Lane’s “Manners and Customs of the Modern
Egyptians”; and it was under the graceful arcades which support the
dome that the bathers underwent the kneading and rubbing processes
lately introduced among us. The chamber is lighted from above through
star-shaped apertures. The inscriptions refer to the felicity awaiting
men in this palace of delight. The bathing-apartments consist of three
halls and two smaller chambers, vulgarly called the Infantas’ Baths.
THE TOWERS AND GATES OF THE ALHAMBRA
“The wall of the Nasrites,” writes Señor Fernández Jiménez, “of which
scarcely a patch remains unimpaired, measured about 1400 metres from one
extremity to the other, and was defended by twenty-six towers, counting
as one the two buttresses that defended the gate of the Siete Suelos. To
this number should properly be added the Torre de las Armas, which is
pierced by a gate common to the Alcazaba and Alhambra, and is therefore
also a Nasrite work. The citadel was fortified, moreover, by five
bastions, corresponding to as many gates, and by various external
defences, of which traces remain in the modern alamedas. The thickness
of the towers varies according to their situation and purpose, the
distance between them ranging from 34 to 64 metres approximately.” At
the present day we can count only fifteen towers, the names of which
are: las Aguas, los Siete Suelos, las Cabezas, la Justicia, la Polvora,
los Hidalgos, la Vela, las Armas, las Gallinas, los Puñales, las Damas,
los Picos, del Candil, de la Cautiva, and las Infantas.
The Puerta de la Justicia is the principal entrance to the Alhambra. It
was built, as the inscription over the arch relates, by the Sultan Yusuf
Abu-l-Hejaj, in 1348. Here justice was administered in Moorish days
after the old patriarchal fashion. Above the arch is carved an open
hand, the signification of which is a matter of controversy. The most
probable explanation is that it is a religious symbol, the five fingers
typifying Faith in God and the Prophet, and the commandments, to pray,
to fast, to give alms, and to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. The inner
arch is beautifully decorated with arabesques, and with the symbol of
the key. The entrance is continued through another gate, with winding
passages contrived so as to embarrass an enemy. The arch which gives
egress from the tower shows some fine enamelling and festoons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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