Occurrence of Attributes in Original Text
The text related to the cultural heritage 'Caliphate City of Medina Azahara' has mentioned 'City' in the following places:
| Occurrence Sentence | Text Source |
|---|---|
| 'the radiant city'[1]) was a fortified palace-city on the western outskirts of Cxc3xb3rdoba in present-day Spain. | WIKI |
| The city was built in the 10th century by Abd-ar-Rahman III (912xe2x80x93961), a member of the Umayyad dynasty and the first caliph of Al-Andalus. | WIKI |
| The main reason for its construction was politico-ideological: Abd ar-Rahman III had declared himself "caliph" in 929 and the dignity of this new title required the establishment of a new city, a symbol of his power, imitating other eastern Caliphates. | WIKI |
| The city was built near Cxc3xb3rdoba, the existing capital of al-Andalus under Umayyad rule. | WIKI |
| The new city included ceremonial reception halls, a congregational mosque, administrative and government offices, aristocratic residences, gardens, a mint, workshops, barracks, service quarters, and baths. | WIKI |
| [2] After al-Hakam II's death, however, the city ceased to act as the center of government under the rule of Ibn Abi Amir al-Mansur (Almanzor). | WIKI |
| The ruins of the city were excavated starting in 1911. | WIKI |
| Only about 10 hectares of the 112 hectares (0.43 sqxc2xa0mi) of the city have been excavated and partially restored, but this area includes the main palaces. | WIKI |
| Popular legend, recorded by historical writers such as al-Maqqari, holds that the city's name, az-Zahra' (or Azahara in Spanish), came from Abd ar-Rahman III's favorite concubine and that a statue of her stood over the entrance. | WIKI |
| [6] (Although statuary was present in the city, scholar Marianne Barrucand argues that the existence of this particular statue was unlikely. | WIKI |
| [6]) Scholar Felix Arnold argues that a simpler explanation is that the city's name, which also means the "Flowering City" or "Radiant City",[1] emulated the style of other caliphal cities founded by the Abbasids (e.g. | WIKI |
| Madinat al-Qahira "Victorious City", now Cairo). | WIKI |
| The 16th-century writer Al-Maqqari cites a man named Maslama ibn 'Abdallah as the architect of the city, but it is unclear how large his role was or how much of the city he actually designed. | WIKI |
| By 945 the caliph was already living in the city. | WIKI |
| The road between the new city and Cordoba was paved in 946. | WIKI |
| Construction in the city nonetheless continued throughout the remaining years of Abd ar-Rahman III's reign (up to 961) and throughout Al-Hakam II's reign (961xe2x80x93976). | WIKI |
| The whole city was surrounded by a fortified wall with towers. | WIKI |
| Several of the major structures that have been excavated and identified on the site were built over earlier structures and thus appear to belong to a different construction phase after the initial construction of the city. | WIKI |
| These new structures were often built over older, relatively more modest structures, and were thus designed to increase the impression of the caliph's magnificence through the architecture of his city. | WIKI |
| [27] The city also contained a throne hall or audience chamber (the Salxc3xb3n Rico), government offices, workshops that produced luxury objects, the residences of high officials, and xe2x80x93 on the lower levels of the city xe2x80x93 markets and residential districts for the common workers. | WIKI |
| [28][29][30] The city had a manager, a judge, and a police chief. | WIKI |
| [33] The organisation of the city seems to have included a specific path to be followed by foreign guests and dignitaries on their way to the caliph's audience chamber, which was fronted by gardens and pools with vistas over the rest of the city and the valley below. | WIKI |
| [37] In 978 or 979 (368 AH), after he had secured the monopoly of power, he ordered the construction of a new palace city for himself which rivaled Madinat al-Zahra in beauty. | WIKI |
| [38][39] Al-Mansur called his palace with a very similar name: Madinat Az-Zahira ("the Shining City"). | WIKI |
| [43] For many years afterwards the city continued to be looted by people for its building materials, which nearly erased it from existence. | WIKI |
| It was chosen for its outstanding landscape values, allowing a hierarchical construction program so the city and the plains beyond its feet were physically and visually dominated by the buildings of the fortress. | WIKI |
| [45] The city's construction led to a road, water and supply infrastructure partly preserved until today in the form of remains of roads, quarries, aqueducts and bridges. | WIKI |
| The topography played a decisive role in shaping the city. | WIKI |
| Unlike the labyrinthine and chaotic character typical of Muslim urbanism, the site of the city adopted a rectangular shape comprising an area of 112 hectares. | WIKI |
| There were two complexes outside but close by the city, one a large villa at the centre of a large agricultural estate, later given to the state treasurer. | WIKI |
| The city covered an almost rectangular area measuring 1.5 km long (roughly from east to west) and 750 wide (roughly from north to south). | WIKI |
| Today only about 10 of the 112 hectares (0.43 sqxc2xa0mi) of the city have been excavated and restored, although this area includes the main palaces. | WIKI |
| [3] The highest point of the city was at the centre of its northern wall (near the palaces), which is 215 meters above sea level, while the lowest point, to the south and nearer to the river, is 70 meters lower. | WIKI |
| According to historical Arabic sources, the three levels of the city had distinct functions: the uppermost level housed the private palaces of the caliph and his closest associates, the middle terrace housed the buildings of the state administration and the residences of high officials, and the much larger lower level was for the common people and the army. | WIKI |
| [50] This design expressed the social and political hierarchy of the caliphate through the topography of the city itself. | WIKI |
| [50] There also appears to be a division between the eastern and western sectors of the Alcazar, separated by a north-south axis that was aligned with the northern gate of the city. | WIKI |
| The city's lower level was much larger than the Alcazar area and occupied most of the space within the perimeter wall. | WIKI |
| [44][51] Recent excavations have also uncovered the remains of a smaller neighborhood mosque in the southeastern part of the city. | WIKI |
| [52] Aside from the North Gate which led to the palaces, at least two other gates in the city's outer wall are known: the Bab al-Qubba ("Gate of the Dome") in the middle of the southern wall and the Bab al-Shams ("Gate of the Sun") in the eastern wall. | WIKI |
| The city's main congregational mosque, also known today as the Aljama Mosque, was located on the lower level just east of the Upper Garden and Salxc3xb3n Rico complex. | WIKI |
| [53] Other roads led to the mosque from the rest of the city around it. | WIKI |
| The northern gate of the city, Bab al-Jibal ("Gate of the Mountains"), was located at the highest point of the city and granted access directly into the middle of the Alcazar or palace area of the city. | WIKI |
| Visitors to the city reached this area by walking up a ramped street that started on the central axis of the Bab al-Sudda gate and climbed its way to the terrace above, bending 180 degrees several times along the way. | WIKI |
| The decoration of the building was plain in comparison with other royal edifices in the city. | WIKI |
| Archeologists have identified it, tentatively, with the structure located on the highest terrace of the city, in the northwest extremity of the excavated area today. | WIKI |
| [2] It was one of the largest in the city and was probably created during the first phase of construction at Madinat al-Zahra, shortly after its foundation. | WIKI |
| The gardens in between the walkways were sunken, as with other examples in the city. | WIKI |
| According to the New York Times, "The local government in Cxc3xb3rdoba, he said, has failed to enforce a law passed 10 years ago that expanded protections for the site against development... Construction companies are putting up houses on the site of the city, 90 percent of which remains unexcavated. | WIKI |
| The Caliphate City of Medina Azahara is an archaeological site of a newly-founded city built in the mid-10th century CE by the western Umayyad dynasty as the seat of the Caliphate of Cordoba. | UNESCO |
| The city was destroyed shortly afterwards, and from that time remained hidden until its rediscovery in the early 20thxc2xa0century CE. | UNESCO |
| In addition, the landscape features which influenced the cityxe2x80x99s location are conserved. | UNESCO |
| Criterion (iii): The abandoned Caliphate City of Medina Azahara, being a new city planned and built as a state initiative, attests in an exceptional way to the Umayyad cultural and architectural civilization, and more generally to the development of the western Islamic civilization of Al-Andalus. | UNESCO |
| The site includes the entire Caliphate city, and its buffer zone preserves the context of the city in its natural environment, as well as the remains of the main infrastructure of roads and canals that radiated from it. | UNESCO |
| The quarries where the building material for the city was extracted and the major country villas (munya) have also survived in the buffer zone. | UNESCO |
| Because the city remained hidden from the time of its destruction in the early 11th century CE to its rediscovery in the early 20th century CE, and since the area was used for grazing livestock, the remains are very well preserved. | UNESCO |
| Identifying the original position of the different materials used in building the city has made this work possible. | UNESCO |
| The authenticity of the site is also guaranteed by the conservation of its natural environment, where little has changed since the destruction of the city, except for a few small recent alterations. | UNESCO |