Almonaster la Real is a town and

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

located in the province of

Huelva Huelva ( , , ) is a municipality of Spain and the capital of the Huelva (province), province of Huelva, in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. Located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, it sits betwee ...

, Spain. According to the 2005

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, the city had a population of 1,805 inhabitants.

Demographics

Monuments

Mosque, 9th-10th century

As the Arab name ''Al-Munastir'' suggests, the Mosque was built on the site of a Christian monastery and incorporates some of the fabric of a

visigoth The Visigoths (; ) were a Germanic people united under the rule of a king and living within the Roman Empire during late antiquity. The Visigoths first appeared in the Balkans, as a Roman-allied barbarian military group united under the comman ...

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica (Greek Basiliké) was a large public building with multiple functions that was typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek Eas ...

. It is one of the few surviving Spanish rural mosques of Umayyad date (10th century, possibly 9th). It is an oddly-shaped building, made of brick and stone in a

trapezoidal In geometry, a trapezoid () in North American English, or trapezium () in British English, is a quadrilateral that has at least one pair of parallel sides. The parallel sides are called the ''bases'' of the trapezoid. The other two sides are ...

shape, probably because of the hilly terrain. The prayer hall consists of a central

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and aisles divided by brick arcades, resting on rectangular stone pillars or reused Roman columns, with at least one re-employed Roman Corinthian capital. The central

is wider than the two adjacent aisles, which are in turn wider than the outer aisles. The brick

Mihrab ''Mihrab'' (, ', pl. ') is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the ''qibla'', the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a ''mihrab'' appears is thus the "''qibla'' wall". ...

projects into the southern flank. A small courtyard was cut out of the rock in the north-east corner, and contains a stone basin that was once used for ritual ablutions. The detached rectangular minaret on the north side has been converted into a bell tower. The eastern apse and sacristy and western porch were also added when the building was turned into a church. Sixteen undated graves were found under the floor. What little light it would have had would have come in via the patio, the door and three narrow windows, two to the left of the

and two to the right.

References

External links

Almonaster la Real
- Sistema de Información Multiterritorial de Andalucía Municipalities in the Province of Huelva {{andalusia-geo-stub

Demographics

Monuments

Mosque, 9th-10th century

See also

References

External links