CAÑOS DE CARMONA

It seems that the pipes were built reusing the layout of an ancient Roman aqueduct, in the Almohad period, during the reign of Yusuf. Originally they were about 17 kilometers long and would have around 400 arches, raised on robust brick pillars. Depending on the unevenness of the terrain, in some areas a simple arcade was arranged and in others a double one was necessary. Currently, only a few scattered fragments remain along the axis of Luis Montoto street. The remains are frequently misidentified with a Roman aqueduct.

ARAB BATHS OF THE GIRALDA BAR

They have been dated to the beginning of the 12th century, in the Almoravid period and are probably the best preserved in Seville. They are built of brick and have a large central space, covered by a vaulted ceiling resting on tubes, which are supported by semicircular arches. The arches, in turn, rest on Tuscan columns, added later to replace the original support, which in all probability would be brick pillars.

On both sides of this central space there are two smaller ones, covered by a barrel vault. Most likely, the central space served as a warm room and those on the sides were the cold and hot rooms.

ARAB BATHS OF THE MESON DEL MORO

They date back to the 12th century and have preserved part of their original brick structure, with semicircular vaults resting on arches, some of which are horseshoe shaped. We can also see the original starry skylights, so characteristic of Arab baths.

The so-called Mesón del Moro was established in the building that the baths occupy, a lodging place whose origins some authors date back to the Middle Ages. Apparently, the name would derive from a concession of the Catholic Monarchs according to which all Muslims who stayed in the city had to do so in this establishment.

GATE OF OIL

The current name already appears in Christian times, in relation to the market and the oil warehouses that were located in the vicinity.
Its current appearance is far from the original and is mostly due to the reform undertaken by Benvenuto Tortello in the 16th century, focused on facilitating vehicle traffic through the shutter.
Also from the 16th century seems to be the monumental shield of Seville that is located on the opening towards the center of the city. It has been attributed to the Renaissance sculptor Juan Bautista Vázquez el Viejo.
Next to the Postigo is the small Chapel of La Pura y Limpia, built in the 18th century. There a small image of the Immaculate attributed to Pedro Roldán is venerated.

WALL OF SAN GREGORIO STREET

GATE OF THE WATER

WALL IN THE CALLEJÓN DEL AGUA

Three rectangular towers have been preserved in this section. Next to the one closest to the Plaza de Alfaro, you can see the ends of the two large clay pipes that run along the wall in this section. Originally they were conceived to conduct water from the Puerta de Carmona to the gardens of the Alcázar. The water came to this door from some sources in Alcalá de Guadaira through an aqueduct known as the Caños de Carmona, of which some scattered fragments have been preserved on Luis Montoto street and on Avenida de Andalucía.

WALLS IN JARDINES DE MURILLO

These fragments are dated from the 12th century and were built with mud and brick. Three rectangular towers have also been preserved. Of one of them, the closest to the Plaza de Refinadores, only the first solid body has been preserved. The other two, on both sides of Nicolás Antonio street, have been highly modified on their upper floors, reused for residential purposes.

The preserved towers have a rectangular floor plan and are separated by about 45 meters. Like those preserved in the Macarena, they are solid up to the height of the parapet, while they present a vaulted space on the top floor from which the roof is accessed.

WALLS IN JARDINES DEL VALLE

They are built in mud, are crenellated and have a width of the walls of about two meters. In this case, the barbican has not been preserved and the height is less than the original, since the ground level has risen with respect to the 12th century.

GATE OF CORDOBA

In almost all of the works that have described Seville since the 16th century, they speak of its “Roman” walls. Official historiography did not hesitate to trace its origin back to the times of Julius Caesar, as reflected in the founding legend of the city that appeared inscribed on a plaque at the Puerta de Jerez: "Hercules founded me, Julius Caesar surrounded me with walls and high towers. In fact, until just a few decades ago, the guides continued to allude to the Roman origin of the Seville fence.

Thus, they were endowed with much more antiquity, within the tendency to extol the Roman past as the main cultural substratum over the Islamic contribution.

It is true that Seville had some Roman walls that have been verified archaeologically, but they enclosed a much smaller space that was limited to an area that extended approximately between Martín Villa, Laraña and Imagen streets, to the north, and the area from the cathedral and the fortress, to the south. The wall that reached contemporary times is the one built by the Almohads in the 12th century, although there are authors who trace its origins back a few decades and attribute them to the Almoravids.

They built an enormous wall marked out by towers of more than 7 kilometers in length, which closed off a space of 273 hectares. The dimensions were so enormous that the intramural area was not filled by the city until centuries later. The few canvases that have come down to us belonged to these walls: the one that develops between the Macarena arch and the Puerta de Córdoba, the one in the Valle gardens and the one that runs along Calle del Agua to the Alcázar in the neighborhood of Santa Cruz. In addition, there are many other fragments masked among the current buildings in various parts of the city.

We know the location of many of the entrances that the Almohad walled enclosure had. In the Puerta de la Macarena there was the bab Maqarana, in the one in Córdoba the bab Qurtuba, at the end of Sol street the bab al-Sams, in Puerta Jerez the bab Saris and possibly in the postigo del Aceite the bab Zayt. In addition, we know that there were other entrances whose names are not clear, such as those of Puerta Osario, Puerta de la Carne or Puerta de Triana, which is said to be the most beautiful of all the Muslim fences.

Of all of them, only the Aceite shutter and the Macarena and Córdoba gates have survived to us, although in a very partial way. Most of the walls and their gates were demolished in the second half of the 19th century, especially during the Democratic Six-year period, between 1868 and 1874. The reasons given were mainly urban. It was believed that the walls restricted Seville in some way and made its expansion impossible following modern and rational criteria.

There was a prevailing current of thought that identified the permanence of walled enclosures in Spanish cities with the decadence and lack of progress that they wanted to overcome. In a very beautiful way, Bécquer shares this feeling in some verses dedicated to Ávila in 1864:

Almost lost in the twilight mist and enclosed within its jagged walls, the ancient city, homeland of Santa Teresa, Ávila, the one with the dark, narrow and crooked streets, the one with the dust-covered balconies, the corners with altarpieces and the eaves. outgoing There is the population, today as in the 16th century, silent and stagnant.

The fact that the walls were almost complete until such recent times makes it possible for there to be numerous engravings, paintings, drawings and even photographs of its main entrances. However, it must be said that the doors that appear in these images do not correspond to the original ones of the Almohad fence, but rather belong to the reconstructions carried out from the 16th century, therefore they present a stylistic variety that ranges between Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassicism according to their chronology.

This is the case of the Macarena arch, which only shares its location with the Almoha door, since as we see it today it is the result of an 18th century work, when it was completely redone.

The reason why the Almohad entrances were replaced by others made after the arrival of the Christians has to do above all with issues of transit. The Muslim entrances were layered to allow their defense in a more effective way. That is to say, they were made up of several doors arranged at an angle forming turns that made them more difficult to attack. When the Christian conquest of the Peninsula was consolidated, this reinforced security became unnecessary and also caused bottleneck problems in the entry and exit of people and merchandise, especially as the use of horse-drawn carriages spread. Thus, the authorities successively undertook to replace the original entrances with others that were simpler in structure, with a large central opening open on both sides through which it was much easier to navigate.

The only entrance from which we can still see something of its original Almohad traces is the Puerta de Córdoba. As it has come down to us, it is a robust rectangular tower with two horseshoe-arched doors open on two sides, forming a 90º angle. This body would originally be inscribed in a larger fortified space, which had a third door open to the outside and now disappeared. If attacking theorists managed to get past this third gate, they still had two more to break down, while the city's defenders could harass them from the top of the walls.

The fact that it is the only preserved door is not the result of chance. Since the Middle Ages, the legend had spread that this was the place where the Visigothic prince Hermenegildo was imprisoned, after having revolted against his father Leovigildo, proclaiming himself king. Hermenegildo had justified his disloyalty in his conversion to Catholicism, which in theory prevented him from maintaining his fidelity to an Arian king. This circumstance would cause Hermenegildo over time to be identified by official and Catholic historiography as a precursor martyr of the catholicity of Spain. In this vein, he was canonized in 1585 and has since been considered one of the patron saints of the Hispanic Monarchy. The places related to his history or his legend became almost sacred. This explains why in the 17th century the church of San Hermenegildo, which we can see today, was built next to the door.

Although incomplete, this meant that the gate was saved from the great destruction of the wall in the 19th century and has come down to us, at least partially. Seville's taste for legends, which inhabit each of the corners of this city, served in this case so that today we can contemplate a beautiful testimony of the monumental walls of Isbiliya from the 12th century.

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