Loja (Loja)
Loja has sometimes been identified with the ancient Ilipula, or with the Lacibi (Lacibis) of Pliny and Ptolemy. It is unknown when Loja was first captured by the Moors; most likely this happened in the 8th century. It first clearly emerges in the Arab chronicles of the year 890. It was taken by Ferdinand III in 1226, but was soon afterwards abandoned. Its Moorish name, Medina Lawša, was changed to Lauxa when it was captured by the Christians in 1486, during the Reconquista. Isabella I of Castile called it the "flower among thorns".
The town was the centre of the Loja uprising in 1861, led by local Rafael Pérez del Álamo, that was quickly suppressed.
The town's Islamic heritage is still evident in the quarter of the Alcazaba, a Moorish fortress of which most of the walls and towers remain.
Other sights include:
* Convent of Santa Clara (16th century)
* Convento of St. Francis of Assisi, including a 16th-century cloister
* Church of the Incarnation (16th-17th centuries)
* Church of San Gabriel (16th century)
* Church of Santa Catalina (16th-17th century)
Map - Loja (Loja)
Map
Country - Spain
Flag of Spain |
Anatomically modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 42,000 years ago. The ancient Iberian and Celtic tribes, along with other pre-Roman peoples, dwelled the territory maintaining contacts with foreign Mediterranean cultures. The Roman conquest and colonization of the peninsula (Hispania) ensued, bringing the Romanization of the population. Receding of Western Roman imperial authority ushered in the migration of different non-Roman peoples from Central and Northern Europe with the Visigoths as the dominant power in the peninsula by the fifth century. In the early eighth century, most of the peninsula was conquered by the Umayyad Caliphate, and during early Islamic rule, Al-Andalus became a dominant peninsular power centered in Córdoba. Several Christian kingdoms emerged in Northern Iberia, chief among them León, Castile, Aragon, Portugal, and Navarre made an intermittent southward military expansion, known as Reconquista, repelling the Islamic rule in Iberia, which culminated with the Christian seizure of the Emirate of Granada in 1492. Jews and Muslims were forced to choose between conversion to Catholicism or expulsion, and eventually the converts were expelled through different royal decrees.
Currency / Language
ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
---|---|---|---|
EUR | Euro | € | 2 |
ISO | Language |
---|---|
EU | Basque language |
CA | Catalan language |
GL | Galician language |
OC | Occitan language |
ES | Spanish language |