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Last modified: 2022-09-09 by ivan sache
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Flag of Guadix - Image from Símbolos de Granada, 9 April 2022
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The municipality of Guadix (18,796 inhabitants in 2014; 32,426 ha; heritage website) is located 60 km north-west of Granada. The municipality is made of the town of Guadix and of the villages of Estación de Guadix (966 inh.), Bácor (483 inh.), Hernán-Valle (32 inh.), Paulenca (181 inh.), Belerda (205 inh.), Olivar (556 inh.), and Los Balcones.
Guadix has been more or less continuously settled since the Prehistoric times. The first evidence of permanent settlement is dated to the Bronze Age (middle 2nd millennium BC); dwellings were associated with grain cultivation and process (mills and barns) and had circular tombs in the underground. In the later Bronze Age, huts evolved to a circular shape and were equipped with ovens and fireplaces. These remains, as well as pottery pieces, support the localization of the primitive settlement on the northern slope of the central hill of the present-day's town, overlooking river Guadix and its fertile valley.
In the Celtiberian period, an opppidum appeared in Guadix in the 6th century BC; archeological remains provide evidence for an organized settlement. Ptolemy lists and localizes Acci as the last of the 15 Bastuli towns. Pliny the elder mentions Acci as a Roman colony part of Conventus Carthaginensis in the province of Hispania Tarraconensis. Acci is also mentioned by Macrobius and Antonine.
Epigraphy, numismatic and archeology provide little information of Acci, whose existence remained unconfirmed until the unexpected discovery of the ruins of the theater in 2007; the location of the forum has also been confirmed. A structure first interpreted as a gate of the Roman town was subsequently re-interpreted as a temple, documented by a Corinthian capital and the head of a statute portraying emperor Trajan.
According to coins minted locally, which feature aquilae and other military emblems, Acci was a deductio militar under the ius italicum law, which favored demographic increase and economical development.
In the turn of the 3rd and 4th centuries, the town declined and most of its population probably moved to neighboring, rural areas.
Guadix quickly adopted the Christian religion, an episcopal see being mentioned as early as in the 4th century. Bishop Felix presided the Synods of Elvira held in 305-306.
Nothing has remained from the 4th to the 11th century, when the Zirid re-established a urban nucleus named Wadi Ash and defended by a citadel. During the Almoravid and Almohad periods, urban planning was completed with the design of a walled medina, which was progressively surrounded by new boroughs. The town peaked during the Nasrid period; Muhammad I of Granada adopted the title of commander of Guadix in 1232. The citadel became a well-defended stroghold where rebels and overthrown rules took shelter. Ibn Al-Jatib reports that Muhammad V withdrew to Guadix after having been expelled from Granada in 1359. Occupied by El Zagal, Guadix surrendered without much resistance to the Christians on 30 December 1489. The Christian actually settled the town in September 1490, renaming it to Guadix; following a failed attempt to seize the citadel, the Muslims and Jews were expelled from the medina to villages located out of the town.
The former grand mosque, described in 1494 by the German traveler Münzer as dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, was partially demolished in 1500 to erect a cathedral, whose construction lasted from the 16th to the 18th century. Additions made from 1510 to 1520 in Gothic style were completed in 1549 in Renaissance style by famous architect Diego de Siloé. Stopped in 1568 by the morisco revolt, the works resumed only in 1713 under the guidance of the master architect of the cathedral of Jaén, Blas Antonio Delgado. Appointed master architect with the support of king Philip V, Vicente Acero was succeeded in 1718 by Gaspar Cayón de la Vega, who unified the components added by his predecessors.
The majestic, baroque facade of the cathedral was built from 1754 to 1799, with some later additions.
Ivan Sache, 9 April 2022
The flag of Guadix (photo), adopted on 22 February 2022 by the Municipal Council and submitted on 3 March 2022 to the Directorate General of the Local Administration, is prescribed by a Resolution issued on 11 March 2022 by the Directorate General of the Local Administration and published on 18 March 2022 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 53, p. 4,334 (text).
The flag is described as follows:
Flag: An heraldic banner, in dimensions 2 by 3. The panel divided into two vertical stripes of the same size, red at hoist and white at fly. Charged in the center at mid-hoist with an emblem composed of a yoke or interlaced with a rope and a bundle of seven arrows or tied by the same, surrounded by two branches of laurel.
The red and white colors represent the Nasrid and Almohad periods, respectively.
The laurel branch supporting the emblem recalls the Roman period.
The emblem featured on the flag is derived from the historical coat of arms of Guadix, which does not appear to have been officially registered.
The arms of Guadix were granted by the Catholic Monarchs in 1497, eight years after the reconquest of the town from the Moors:
"By the present, We grant as your arms and emblems our proper arms featuring a yoke and a bundle of arrows, which you may want to paint on your banner. The arms are granted as of today and for ever."
Known from a transcription made in 1876 and kept at the National Historical Archives in Madrid, the original privilege was found in 1924 during a survey of the town's archives.
The yoke and arrows are the personal emblems of the Catholic Monarchs, representing Isabel I of Castile and Ferdinand V of Aragón, respectively.
The coat of arms used in Guadix since the 1980s is:
"A field gules (red) a yoke or interlaced with a rope or scroll and a bundle of seven black arrows tied by the same, surrounded outside by the motto 'de la Muy Noble y Leal ciudad de Guadix'".
The design is modeled on the arms found on the left side of the facade of the Town Hall, dated 1606. The arrows are erroneously represented in black, while the yoke and arrows of the arms of the Catholic Kings are always represented in the same color, or.
The color of the original arms was white, not red, as shown on the standard of the Regiment of the Militia af the Province of Guadix represented in Estado Militar de España (1748-1750). The shield is also represented with a field argent by Francisco de Piferrer (Nobilario de los Reinos de España y SeñorÃos de España, 1857-1861) and José Lapoulide (Diccionario gráfico de Arte y Oficios, 1923). The program of the 1927 town's festival also features a white shield, which was substituted by a red shield in the 1940s, for whatever reason.
The title "Muy Noble" (Very Noble) dates back to the re-settlement of the town initiated in 1490 by the Catholic Monarchs, who commissioned 200 noble knights to this task. The title "Muy Leal" (Very Loyal) was added in 1520 by Emperor Charles V as a reward for the loyalty of the town during the War of the Comuneros.
[Miguel Amezcua López. 2015. El escudo de la ciudad de Guadix. Boletín del Centro de Estudios "Pedro Suárez" 28, 319-324]
The adoption of the flag stirred up a sour controversy in Guadix. Municipal Councillor Manuel Ortiz (IU) rejected the use of the yoke and arrows as follows: "These symbols, dating back to the Catholic Monarchs, have been used by the Phalanx and the Francoist dictatorship and are therefore associated with pain, torture and murder".
Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica del Zenete y Comarca de Guadix, one of the 40 components of Asamblea Memorialista de Andalucía, argued that "Undoubtedly, the yoke and arrows will satisfy those who missed the dicatatorship". The proposed arms were eventually approved by the Councillors from the PP (8) and Ciudadanos (5) and rejected by those from IU (1) and the PSOE (5), while Gana Guadix (1) abstained from the vote.
[El País, 5 August 2021]
Ivan Sache, 9 April 2022
![[Flag]](../images/e/es-gr-bo.gif)
Flag of Bácor-Olivar - Image from Símbolos de Granada, 9 April 2022
The submunicipal entity of of Bácor-Olivar was established by a Resolution adopted on 6 July 1993 by the Government of Andalusia and published on 31 August 1993 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 94, p. 8,033 (text).
Bácor was transferred in 1960 from Freila to Guadix, while Olivar was already listed in 1752 as a farm, than inhabited by eight households, depending on Guadix.
On 20 March 1990, 279 villagers from Bácor and Olivar tabled a request of establishment of a submunicipal entity at the municipality of Guadix. The process was officially initiated on 30 July 1992 by the Municipal Council, which eventually validated the request on 29 October 1992.
[Municipal website]
The flag (photo) and arms of Bácor-Olivar, adopted on 24 September 2008 by the Municipal Council and submitted on 10 October 2008 to the Directorate General of the Local Administration, are prescribed by a Resolution adopted on 27 October 2008 by the Directorate General of the Local Administration and published on 10 November 2008 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 223, p. 24 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:
Flag: Panel in proportions 2:3 (width to length), horizontally divided into four stripes of equal width, green, white, brown, and yellow, from top to bottom. In the center of the panel, the municipal coat of arms.
Coat of arms: Spanish shield. Argent a mount proper charged with a house argent port and windows sable ensigned by a cave of the same. A base embattle or a cherry tree eradicated vert and an olive tree of the same, the the first fructed or. The shield surmounted by a Royal Spanish crown closed.
The shield represents the structure of the village of Bácor. The lower part is made of houses built around the parish church in the plain. The upper part is made of a network of cave-dwellings established in the hillside, below the ruined castle. The trees must represent Olivar, which is made of small farms established in the plain.
[Municipal website]
Ivan Sache, 15 January 2017
