60 Fun Facts About Alhambra

The Alhambra sits on Sabika hill, an outcrop of which mountain range?

The hill had held earlier fortresses and an 11th-century palace before the Alhambra was begun.

The name Alhambra comes from Arabic al-Hamra, meaning what?

The full form was al-Qal'a al-Hamra, 'the red fortress'; the walls are rammed earth coloured by iron oxide in the local clay.

Which river carves the ravine on the Alhambra's north side, separating it from the Albaicín?

The Zirids once controlled its water with a sluice called the Gate of the Tambourines.

The Alhambra is the only well-preserved royal palace surviving from which civilization?

It is also one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and contains notable Spanish Renaissance work.

Which 11th-century Jewish administrator of the Zirids built a palace on the Sabika hill?

Known in Hebrew as Samuel ha-Nagid, his palace reportedly had gardens and water features; nothing of it survives.

Who began building the Alhambra in 1238 as founder of the Emirate of Granada?

According to a contemporary manuscript, he marked the foundations, and the ramparts and a water channel were finished within the year.

The Emirate of Granada, whose rulers built the Alhambra, was the last Muslim state of what region?

Castile had already taken Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248.

The Sultan's Canal, bringing mountain water, turned the Alhambra from a fortress into what?

Earlier fortresses on the hill had depended on rainwater cisterns and water carried up from the river.

Which sultan's reign (1354-1391) marked the apogee of Nasrid architecture and produced the Palace of the Lions?

He also remodelled the Mexuar and created the ornate Comares Façade.

Which sultan began Nasrid architecture's 'classical' period, starting the Comares Palace around 1314?

He also founded the Rawda, the Nasrid dynastic mausoleum.

Which is the oldest Nasrid palace still standing in the Alhambra, a pavilion by a reflecting pool?

Muhammad III, who also built the Alhambra's main mosque, erected it in the early 1300s.

The Alcazaba, the oldest surviving part of the Alhambra, is what kind of structure?

Its 26-metre Torre del Homenaje was the keep; a residential district inside housed the elite guards.

The Catholic Monarchs' flag was first raised on 2 January 1492 above which Alcazaba tower in Granada?

A bell was added soon afterwards and rung daily for centuries.

Which two symbols are carved over the arches of the Puerta de la Justicia, the Alhambra's main gate?

The hand's five fingers stand for the Five Pillars of Islam; the key is another symbol of faith. Yusuf I built the gate in 1348.

What is the Arabic name of the Puerta de la Justicia?

It means Gate of Shari'a, or law; the passage bends twice at right angles for defence.

The Puerta del Vino, on the way to the Palace of Charles V, is named after what?

Its construction is attributed to the reign of Muhammad III.

The Comares Palace courtyard is named after which plants growing in hedges beside its 34-metre pool?

The Patio de los Arrayanes measures about 23 by 36.6 metres.

Which room in the Comares Tower is the Alhambra's largest and was the sultan's throne room?

It is a square of 11.3 metres per side rising 18.2 metres, with windows in three directions.

The Alhambra throne room's ceiling of 8,017 interlinked wooden pieces forms an abstract picture of what?

The room is effectively an enlarged mirador, a lookout room.

How many marble lions surround the basin of the famous fountain in the Court of the Lions?

A poem by Ibn Zamrak around the rim praises the lions and describes their hydraulics.

What is unique in Islamic architecture about the portico of the Court of the Lions?

The courtyard measures about 28.7 by 15.6 metres with pavilions at east and west.

The Sala de los Abencerrajes is named for a legend that a sultan did what to the clan's chiefs?

The hall's muqarnas vault rises to a 16-sided lantern in the shape of an eight-pointed star.

The Sala de Dos Hermanas, or Hall of Two Sisters, is named after what?

Its muqarnas dome has at least 5,000 prismatic pieces; the original Arabic name was 'the Great Dome'.

The name of the Mirador de Lindaraja is a corruption of an Arabic phrase meaning what?

Its ceiling is a wooden lattice filled with pieces of coloured glass.

The Hall of Kings' rare Nasrid-era paintings of sultans are executed on what surface?

The style shows the influence of Christian Gothic art.

What is the 'stalactite'-like three-dimensional stucco used for the Alhambra's vaulted ceilings called?

In Spanish it is mocárabes; sebka is a lattice motif and zellij is mosaic tile.

The Nasrid motto repeated across the Alhambra's walls translates as what?

Inscriptions also include Qur'anic excerpts and poems by court poets.

Which vizier-poet composed the verses on the Fountain of the Lions and other palace walls?

He headed the chancery under Muhammad V and Muhammad VII, following Ibn al-Jayyab and Ibn al-Khatib.

The Alhambra's poems are unusual for being written in what voice, as if the room were speaking?

Words like 'blessing' and 'felicity' also appear as decorative Kufic calligrams.

The Alhambra's white marble columns and fountains were quarried at Macael in which province?

The stucco and capitals, colourless today, were once painted red, blue and gold.

What was originally the most prominent colour scheme of the Alhambra's now-monochrome stucco and ceilings?

Gold stood in for yellow among the primary colours.

Which last sultan of Granada surrendered the Alhambra in January 1492 without it being attacked?

He had his ancestors' remains removed first; Torres Balbás found seventy empty tombs in 1925.

The Alhambra Decree, signed at the palace on 31 March 1492, ordered the expulsion from Spain of whom?

The monarchs stayed on in the city until 25 May that year.

Which explorer presented his Atlantic expedition plan to the Catholic Monarchs in the Alhambra in 1492?

They signed his contract on 17 April; he had also witnessed the surrender of the city.

Which noble house governed the Alhambra for the Spanish Crown from 1492 until Philip V dismissed them?

Their departure began the Alhambra's most severe period of decline.

Which Michelangelo-trained architect designed the Renaissance palace Charles V commissioned in 1526?

He planned colonnaded plazas as a grand approach, which were never built.

What is the distinctive shape of the courtyard inside the square Palace of Charles V?

Work stopped for 15 years during the 1568 Morisco Rebellion and was abandoned in 1637, leaving the palace roofless until the 1920s.

Which queen was buried in 1504 in the Alhambra's Convent of San Francisco, later a Parador?

Her body was later moved to the Royal Chapel near the cathedral.

Whose retreating troops blew up eight of the Alhambra's towers in 1812?

The soldier was José Garcia; an earthquake in 1821 did further damage.

Which American writer lived in the Alhambra in 1829 and published Tales of the Alhambra in 1832?

He published it under his pen name Geoffrey Crayon.

What un-Nasrid feature did the Contreras architects add to the Court of the Lions in 1858–59?

They followed 'stylistic restoration', adding elements they thought looked suitably 'Oriental'.

Which archaeologist-architect, chief from 1923 to 1936, reversed bad restorations and finally roofed Charles V's palace?

He endorsed the 1931 Athens Charter and excavated lost palaces such as the Partal Alto.

In which year were the Alhambra and Generalife listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

That same year Madrid handed responsibility for the site to the Regional Government of Andalusia.

The Generalife, the sultans' summer estate, takes its name from Arabic Jannat al-'Arif, most commonly rendered as what?

Other readings include Garden of the Artist; it was linked to the Alhambra by a walled corridor across the valley.

The Alhambra's tiles are said to contain nearly all of how many mathematically possible wallpaper groups?

No other building in the world manages it.

Which Dutch artist's 1922 visit to the Alhambra inspired his later 'regular divisions of the plane'?

His study of the Moorish symmetries led directly to his tessellations.

Which British architect's 1842-45 book on the Alhambra launched the 'Alhambresque' fashion?

Khedive Isma'il later hired him to design the interiors of Cairo's Gezira Palace.

The 125 cm 'Alhambra vases' are the largest examples ever made of which kind of ceramic?

Ten survive; the Vase of the Gazelles in the Alhambra Museum is one of the finest.

Recuerdos de la Alhambra, the classical guitar piece inspired by the palace, was composed by whom?

It is famous for its demanding tremolo technique.

The Alhambra Museum shares its building with what?

Both occupy Charles V's Renaissance palace, which stood roofless for three centuries.

Which Cincinnati synagogue is among the Moorish Revival buildings inspired by the Alhambra?

Villa Zorayda in St. Augustine, Florida, is another American example.

The main Alhambra mosque, completed in 1305, survives only in an ornate bronze lamp now displayed where?

After 1492 it passed into the treasury of Cardinal Cisneros; the Church of Santa María now stands on the mosque site.

The fingers of the hand carved over the Puerta de la Justicia symbolise what?

The gate was built in 1348 under Yusuf I; its bent passage has an opening for defenders to drop projectiles on attackers.

Through which gate did the Catholic Monarchs first enter the Alhambra on 2 January 1492?

The 'Gate of Seven Floors' was almost destroyed by French explosions in 1812 and rebuilt in the 1970s from fragments and old engravings.

What was the Rawda, whose foundations lie between the former mosque and the Palace of the Lions?

Boabdil, the last sultan, had his ancestors' remains moved to an unknown site at Mondújar in the Alpujarras before the surrender.

How many extra graves did Torres Balbás find in the Nasrid mausoleum enclosure in 1925–26?

Almost all were empty; tombstones of Muhammad II, Isma'il I, Yusuf I and Yusuf III had turned up in 1574 during work on Charles V's palace.

The Renaissance gate at the entrance to the Alhambra Woods, built in 1536, is named after which fruit?

Granada shares its name with the Spanish word for the fruit; the Puerta de las Granadas replaced an earlier Islamic-era gate.

The Acequia del Sultan draws the Alhambra's water from the Darro roughly how far east of the palace?

The canal still largely survives; water enters the complex via an aqueduct beside the Torre del Agua at its eastern tip.

Owen Jones designed Alhambresque interiors for which Cairo residence built for the 1869 Suez Canal opening?

Ottoman buildings under Sultan Abdülaziz, such as the Beyazıt Square gate in Istanbul, also borrowed Alhambra motifs.

What is the Silla del Moro, on the hilltop above the Generalife?

Nearby lay two lost 14th-century estates, the Palacio de los Alijares and the Dar al-'Arusa, 'House of the Bride'.