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- Abencerrajes Room
Brief description of the monument
It is located in front of the Dos Hermanas Hall, and its name is due to the popular tradition assuring that the Abencerrajes knights were slaughtered in this room, although the authors do not agree on which monarch ordered their execution.
Monument history
This room was the Sultan's bedroom. Being a private room there are no windows to the outside. The walls are richly decorated. The stucco and the colors are original. The tile base is from the 16th century, from the Sevillana tile factory. The dome is decorated with morarabes, on the ground, in the center, a small fountain served to reflect the dome of mocharabes, which being richly decorated, achieved a charming and magical light, because when entering the light from the top it was changing according to the different times of the day. From the low pile comes a gutter that conducts water to the source of the Lions.
The Hall of Abencerrajes has a great history. It is said that 36 knights died here when Boabdil sacrificed them. The Abencerrajes were very popular in the city and were the epitome of everything is noble and gentlemanly. The army had no equal. Although it is probably not the truth that the king sacrificed them, there is a red, the color of blood, among the floor tiles in this room.
The entrance to the room has two arches separated by a corridor that communicates with the upper floor, on the left, and with the lobby of the primitive entrance to the palace, on the right. The central square of the room has alcoves on its sides, with exquisitely decorated arches whose columns have blue capitals, and ceilings with paintings. The walls are covered with plasterwork and a 16th-century tile base, Renaissance style. Over eight tubes of morarabes we find a magnificent dome also of mocarabes. In these tubes we can read the following inscription: "There is no help other than that which comes from God, the merciful and merciful." The windows located at the beginning of the dome let in a dim light that illuminates their mocarabes, giving it a magical appearance. The high floor seems to have been dedicated to the Harem (harim), and therefore it was an exclusively feminine space. An extraordinary viewpoint, open to the patio by three arches, which would have a lattice at the time, allowed the contemplation of the concubines of the same without originals of this room, with extraordinary styling. The room of the Abencerrajes could be the stay of parties in the winter, isolated by its thick wooden doors and heated by the braziers of ceramics or stone, and the concubines would descend from the upper Harém when the sultan required them.