January 16, 2014
WALKS IN HISTORY: The toponymy of Cádiz Story by José Antonio Pilares / Photos provided by Wikipedia
T
he word toponymy in the heading might be “all Greek” to some, and indeed it is! It is the study of placenames, their origins, meanings, use and typology. It comes from the Greek words tópos ("place") and ónoma ("name"). To anyone interested in History, toponymy can give us a wealth of information on a region's past. Today we are going to travel through 3000 years of history thanks to the place-names of the province of Cádiz. Starting with the capital city, Cádiz was first founded by Phoenitians from Sidon and Tyre in 1104 BCE as Gadir; which means “palisade” or “fortress” in ancient Punic language. Gadir became a rich and famous city in Antiquity, with the Greeks translating the name as “ta Sidearm” and the Latins as “Gades”.With the Muslim invasion of 711 CE, Gadir was remained in Arabic as Qadish, from which the modern Cádiz stems. Also dating from pre-Roman times is Jerez. It was first known as Xera and by the time that Arabic was spoken in Spain it had mutated to Sherrish. Here we have a curious evolution of the name. In modern Spanish it derived to Xerez-Jerez. Jerez became famous overseas for its' wine which became a luxurious drink in northern Europe. Merchants from Britain came to enrich themselves on the trade, but found themselves unable to properly pronounce Xerez; instead of “Jerez” they would say “Sherry”...And the word stuck. Today the city is Jerez, and the wine Sherry. South from Cádiz, and often visible from Rota on clear days, is the white-washed hilltop town of Medina Sidonia. It was founded some years later that Cádiz by Phoenitians from Sidon, hence the “second-name” and until the Muslim conquest it simply was known as Sidon, or Asido. Under Muslim rule the city received the title “Madinah”, meaning “city”. After the Christian conquest not only did “Medina-Sidonia” continue in usage but was elevated to be the head of one of the most
important dukedoms in Spain; “el ducado de Medina-Sidonia y condado de Niebla. Near to Rota, and home to many Americans, is Chipiona. Although it might seem an unimportant coastal resort town, Chipiona has been vital for centuries to shipping. It guards the entrance to the Guadalquivir River, and to mark that, it has the highest lighthouse in Spain. That lighthouse is a modern one dating from 1867, but is a worthy heir to the one built in 140 BCE by the Roman pro-consul Quintus Servilio Caepio. The lighthouse became known as “Turris Caepionis” -the tower of Caepio- evolving later on to Chipiona. With the fall of the Roman Empire in the West in 476 CE and the Germanic invasions which swept through Spain, most cities were abandoned as organised government crumbled. By 711 several tribes had ruled over Spain, the most important of which was the Visigoths and their kingdom based in Toledo; however, their time had come. Profiting from a civil war in Spain, the Muslim Berbers of North Africa sent an army across the Strait, making landfall on what they called “the Rock of Tarik”, Gebal at-Tarik; today the British occupied Gibraltar. Just across the bay from Gebel atTarik there was a wooded island that quickly became a great harbour and shipyard for the invaders.The Arabs called it “the green isle” or Al-yazira al-hadra.Al-Yariza eventually became Algeciras and still is one of the mayor ports of Spain. As the Muslim conquerors moved north they renamed most places to better suit their Arab language. In some places only changing the pronunciation -Corduba became Qurtuba, today's Córdoba- but in others the old names were sent to oblivion. The river known as Baetis in Antiquity was seen by the conquerors as “the great river”. It was second to no other river in Andalusia; hence
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they began referring to it as Al-Wadi al-Kabir... Guadalquivir. Guadalquivir means exactly the same as many other rivers in the world such as the Ohio, Rio Grande, or Yangtsí. After 500 years of Arabic-speaking rule in Andalusia, Muslim power began to crumble after the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. A coalition of three Christian kingdoms smashed the almohad armies forcing their retreat to Morocco. Portugal, Castile-León and Aragon all built upon the victory conquering city after city with little or no resistance with the exception of Seville. By 1275 even Algeciras had fallen and the long frontier between Castile and Granada arched like a crescent across Andalusia. That frontier gave name to many cities and towns: Jerez de la Frontera, Arcos de la Frontera, Conil de la Frontera, Chiclana, Jimena, Castellar, Aguilar, Morón... All these places became border outposts in a war that would still last until 1492. If you get a modern map of Andalusia and find all the towns named “de la Frontera” you can actually mark what was the dividing line between East and West for 300 years. A place that could have been “de la Frontera”, but wasn't was Alcanatir. Alcanatir in Arabic means “Harbour of the Salterns” and referred to today's El Puerto.After the Christian conquest, the Castilian king Alfonso X renamed it as Santa María del Puerto; several “reconquered” places received similar names: Santa Maria do Faro, Santa María del Mar... With time the name changed itself around to El Puerto de Santamaría. Still, all were not Christian victories. In the highlands of upper Andalusia the Moorish kingdom of Granada held out defiant, and the old Roman town of Laccipo was a spearhead into Castilian territory.Time and time again Castilian armies assaulted the city which is dug into a canyon, and time and time again they failed to take it. Seven times
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they met with defeat! So low was the morale that Christians began referring to this place as “Septem Nihil”, that is “Seven-Nothing”. When the town was finally conquered in 1484 the name Setenil de las Bodegas was used to rename it. But, why “de las Bodegas”? Well, the caves that humans had dug into the canyon for their houses were great for storing foodstuffs as they never changed their humidity nor their temperature.“De las Bodegas” means “of the cellars/stores”. But, “what about Rota?” you may ask. Surely it cannot simply come from the Spanish word for “broken”. Rota historians have traced back several names for the town, the oldest of which is the pre-Roman “Astaroth”; some have hypothesised that it means in ancient Iberian “The harbour of Asta”. Asta, or Hasta, was a disappeared city west of modern-day Jerez. The Roman name “Speculum Rotae” has also been considered, although no translations of the name really make much sense. After the Muslim conquest, a fortified Islamic monastery -a “rabita”- was built where the Castillo de Luna now stands. Rabitas were commonplace on the coasts of Muslim realms and many modern places in Spain are still named after them. La Rabida in Huelva, La Rápita in Tarragona, Arrábida in Portugal... or even Rabat in Morocco. Our rabita was named Rabita ar-Rutta; meaning “Rabita of the Frontier”. After the Castilian conquest the name was shortened to Rotta and later to simply Rota. Curiously enough, today Rota is still a “border town” because of the Naval Station. A border of shared life between two cultures that -in my understanding- feed back and enrich each other. José Antonio de Pilares japilares@gmail.com
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