Evolución urbana de la ciudad de Mula en época Andalusí (siglos IX-XIII d. C.)

Laburpena

The objective of the Doctoral Thesis that we present is to study the urban evolution of the city of Mula and its territorial environment between the 9th and 13th centuries AD. C, specifically from the abandonment, in the year 822/826, of the Romano-Visigothic city of Mula, located in the district of Baños de Mula, until the Castilian conquest of the medina of Mula in 1244, a location that is part of the current city. The reason for the study is the scarce information that was had on the urban planning and territory of Mula in the Andalusian period from the point of view of architecture and archeology. For this reason, it was decided to analyze the origin, implementation and evolution of the city of Mula and its surroundings from its archaeological remains, compiling in turn the information provided by the written sources. For this, an interdisciplinary methodology based on the analysis of written, Arabic and Latin sources, and archaeological sources has been used. In this sense, in the initial chapters of the Doctoral Thesis (introduction, starting hypothesis and objectives, materials and methodology and state of the art) the city of Mula and its territory are presented as an object of study, and the choice of the topic, collecting the starting points of the research, the chronological and geographical framework of the study, the general and specific objectives set, as well as the sources and the methodology used. The body of the Doctoral Thesis is divided into three blocks, the first of which is dedicated to the origin of the current settlement of Mula, which was located in the Sierra de las Artesas, a promontory located 200 m. north of the current city. Throughout the chapter dedicated to the origin of Mula, a high-rise fortification from the Emirate period is analyzed and documented. In the second block, dedicated to the Andalusian town of Mula, the evolution of the city since the Taifa period is analyzed, focusing mainly on the 12th-13th centuries, when the maximum cultural and urban development was reached. In this block we analyze the walls, the citadel, the albacar and the city itself (mosques, cemeteries, market areas, houses, suburbs, water supply and evacuation and the road network). The last block is dedicated to the territory of Mula in the Andalusian period. For this, we analyze the evolution of the territory from the Emirate period to the Castilian conquest in the middle of the 13th century. Likewise, this block analyzes the organization and use of the territory: communication routes, rural settlement through the different archaeological sites, as well as productive spaces: agricultural (irrigated and rainfed), livestock and other productive spaces (salt pans and mountains). We finish the Doctoral Thesis with the conclusions section, where we confirm the importance of the analysis and study of archaeological sources (excavations, surveys and analysis of the archeology of architecture), being fundamental to complete the information, the documentary sources. The combination of both sources has allowed us to approach a very flourishing cultural period from which only the remains of the city's fortifications could be perceived, an evident sample of that forgotten past. The Thesis has been completed with a documentary annex, where we collect the unpublished documents related to the Andalusian period and the medieval walls, and with a section dedicated to the sources and bibliography used for the development of the Thesis.