The Alentejo, Beja, View of small town, Algarve, Southern Portugal, Europe.
Mértola is a town and a municipality in southeastern Portugal next to the Spanish border. The municipality is located in the southeastern part of Beja District, in the Lower Alentejo region. The seat of the municipality is the town of Mértola, which has around 2800 inhabitants (2011). The town of Mértola is located on a hill by the Guadiana River, and its strategic location made it an important fluvial commercial port from Classical Antiquity through the period of Islamic domination. Among the vestiges of its past, Mértola's main church (Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Anunciação) was the only medieval mosque to have survived in Portugal. During the Migration Period, Mértola was invaded by Germanic tribes of the Sueves and the Visigoths. In this period (5th-8th centuries) commerce was reduced but still active, as evidenced by Greek tombstones from the 6th-7th centuries found in Mértola which suggest the presence of Byzantine merchants in the town. Around the year 711, Hispania was invaded by the Moors from the Maghreb, inaugurating a period of great influence of Islamic culture in the Alentejo region that would last nearly 500 years. Mértola - then called Martulah - and its port played an important economic role in the commerce of agricultural and mineral goods between the Alentejo and other parts of Al-Andalus (Arab Hispania) and Northern Africa. Mértola had a wall dating from Roman times, but the Muslims built new fortifications and, eventually, a castle to protect it from rival Muslim and Christian states. After the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba, in 1031, Mértola became an independent taifa state, until it was conquered by the taifa of Seville in 1044-1045. Between 1144 and 1150 the town was again seat of an independent state led by Ibn Qasi, a mystic and skilled military leader who unified Southern Portugal and fought the power of the Almoravides.
Size: 5760px × 3840px
Location: Beja, Mertola, Algarve, Southern Portugal, Europe.
Photo credit: © Thibaut PETIT-BARA / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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