Malqui-Machay, the last resting place of the Inca

¡Hola!

Today I read an interesting article on Miami Herald, talking about the 'lost' treasure of the Inca Empire before the Spanish Conquest. It is said that the Inca had stashed a huge treasure of gold in the mountains. It was a ransom to get back their Emperor, Mr Atahualpa, from the Spaniards. But the ransom was not delivered, because the Emperor died before being able to do the exchange.

This is what has been said so far. However, Ms Estupiñán (a historian who has been studying about the Incas for 30 years) recently suggested another version, after doing some discoveries by reading a 4,000-pages book.

Amazingly, that book is written in Spanish. :O You should check it out and try to understand at least one letter. Honestly, I have not been able to get a word of it. =) And it took Ms Estupiñán almost a year to transcribe the 7-pages Testament of Atahualpa's son, also written in Spanish like this.

Hope you enjoy the article, thanks for checking it and have a nice day! :)

The Sephardic Spanish, a part of Spain

Sephardic Spanish were Jewish people who lived in Spain for centuries before 1492. They held important position in the Government and other important institutions in the country. Moreover, it is said that most of the counselors of Alfonso X El Sabio (The Wise) were Sephardi.

For them, Spain is Sepharad, a promised land in the Bible (Obad. 1:20). When they arrived to Spain, the country was really in a golden period of its time, being a source of culture and a bridge to new knowledges coming from the Arab world, thanks to the Spanish translator monks.

              

In 1492, Spain was in a period of time when it was still building itself as a country unified under only one kingdom. Before that, more than 2 had been ruling different parts of the territory. At around that time, the Catholic Kings became the Kingdom of Spain, and therefore they needed to reorganize some aspects of the Kingdom. Moreover, they were concerned about Sephardic people, because of their economic and social power, while not being Catholic... Therefore, they let them choose to convert to Catholicism, or leave the country. Although many people (really or just admittedly) converted and remained in Spain, some of them decided to leave the country... However, they left it full of sadness, because of their deep roots with Spanish culture and people.

                      

It needs to be said that these event is not exclusive of Spain. It is the only one that happened in Spain and, actually, it is one of the last ones that happened in Europe. Before this one, England and France, among other countries, had done it in a forceful way to Jewish people for the same or similar reasons.

After hundreds of years, these amazing people kept their Spanish roots and carried Spanish language with them. However, it was separated from Spain before it made huge changes and became the current Spanish.
For that reason, "Judeoespañol", or Sephardic Spanish, is more similar to the Middle Age Spanish than the current one. In the next post, I will talk about this language. I am amazed to listen to it, it is a language treasure and, in my opinion, its people is very creditable.

Some references to learn more (please be aware these are long articles):

- Sephardic Jews
- Sephardic laws and customs
- History of the Jews in Spain


¡Gracias y hasta pronto!

Arabic Iberia, a fascinating Spanish history (Part II)

¡Hola a todos! :) The second part of Arabic Iberia is here, so let's go for it!

As I was saying... Later, the kings that had done that huge war and won it were Fernando of Aragón and Isabel of Castilla, who married each other and became the Catholic Kings. Their marriage was the official beginning of our current (Kingdom of) Spain :).

 

There were 4 kingdoms during the Reconquest: Portugal, Castilla, Navarra and Aragón. As I have said, during that time and after that time, Castilla continued growing and absorbed the other kingdoms, until it was the only kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula in 1492.

Maybe we could say that Spain was born and was build on the basis of a religious and militar expansion project against the Islamic kingdom of that time in order to recover the Iberian Peninsula for the christian kingdoms.

 

And that's already a lot of History for today! :) Now I recommend you to take a nap to refresh all this information in your mind (I will need it as well haha).

¡Qué tengáis un buen día! :)
(Have a nice day!)

Arabic Iberia, a fascinating Spanish history (Part I)

¡Hola! :) As I said in my last post, here I am again, now on time :D
Today I want to tell you about the Arabic Iberian Peninsula, i.e. what the Iberian Peninsula was before really being what we know today as Spain.
Actually, a friend of mine asked me about this part of the Spanish History, so I thought that's a fantastic idea and I decided to prepare a post about that ;)

Before the Spanish people (as we know them at present), there were arabic people in the Iberian Peninsula. They were in the Iberian Peninsula for eight centuries (yes! not a lot... really? haha). There also were some christian visigoth kingdoms that loose their territories (not a lot in that moment) against them in 711.

The best period of time of that 'Islamic Iberian' people was when the huge and important arabic Caliphate of Córdoba appeared after an arabic emir autoproclamates himself as a 'prince of the believers'.

That caliphate was one of the most important and prosperous urban centers of Europe, compared to the christian kingdoms that were going through a period of absolute decadency.

But all this history changed from 711, when the remains of the christian kingdoms began to be stronger and stronger, and began the Reconquest.
The Reconquest needed as much time as the arabic people were in the Iberian Peninsula: 781 years.  So it didn't finish until 1492.

The Reconquest began in the Batlle of Covadonga, which a noble visigoth called Pelayo won, and then he established the first christian non-visigoth (anymore) kingdom called Kingdom of Asturias.

And that's already a lot of History for today! :) Now I recommend you to take a nap to refresh all this information in your mind (I will need it as well haha) and wait expectantly for the second part (huhu).

¡Qué tengáis un buen día! :)
(Have a nice day!)

El Mío Cid

¡Hola! :) Taking advantage from the last post, I would like to share with you this video of the beginning of the Cantar del Mío Cid.
El Mío Cid was a legendary man that conquers a lot of territories to the arabic people that were in Spain centuries ago, when the Spanish Kingdom was still being developed and was trying to conquer all the Iberian Peninsula.
The amazing thing in this video is the fact that the boy who recorded it tried to speak in old castilian spanish, and it's amazing to hear it because it has changed a lot :D
Enjoy it! :)

¡Que vaya bien!
Everything goes well with you!