Medina Azahara

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Today we drove from Granada to Sevilla, with a stop at Medina Azahara on the way. Medina Azahara is a Muslim city built over 1000 years ago by caliph Abd ar-Rahman III of Córdoba. Rumor has it that he built it for his favorite wife, but scholars reject that idea and say that he built it to draw the center of power out of Córdoba. The city itself only functioned for about 80 years before it was destroyed in a civil war.

Only 10% of the city has been unearthed at this time. The archeological site is very well done... they have restored certain pieces of it so that you can see what it would have looked like back in the day. They have an extensive museum, with an interactive computer display that you could read from for hours.

My favorite thing, though, was the movie. They show different photos of the ruins, and then morph that photo into a graphical re-creation of what it would have looked like back in the day, and then have the whole thing animated with people walking around doing their daily routines. It made everything so much more meaningful... instead of looking at a giant pile of rocks, you are able to see the arches that you just stood under, and then see what it looked like and was used for back then. One of the best museums I have ever seen.

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Photos

Putting together the pieces
We saw large piles of rubble that the archeologists were sorting through, trying to piece together the old city like a jigsaw puzzle