An Archaeological Finding Shows How Muslims Cooked In Secret, Fearing For Their Lives After The Fall of Granada

In 1492, Granada fell to the Catholic kings of Castile, thus ending an important era of Islamic history. So how did Muslims conceal their truth after they were persecuted, and how those who refused to convert to Christianity were expelled?

In the aftermath of the new rule, the original Andalusians, the Muslims, were initially allowed to continue practicing their religion, but after a decade of increasingly aggressive religious police practices from the new Catholic regime, the practice of Islamic rites and rituals was banned and those who did not convert to Christianity were expelled, so Christian claimants spread openly and Muslims practiced Islam in secret.

Archaeological excavations in the ruins of Granada, which were discovered recently, revealed evidence of Muslims continuing to practice their customs and traditions in secret and staying attached to their beliefs and heritage, even though food, according to what Springer Link published for academic research.

At the time, the term “Morisco”, which means “little swamp,” was used to refer to the original Muslims who were forced to convert to Catholicism in 1502, after a declaration issued by the Crown of Castile.

Similar declarations were issued in the kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon in the following decades, provoking a wave of armed uprisings. As a result, the Moriscos were expelled between 1609 and 1614 from various kingdoms of Spain, after the Muslims had already been expelled from Portugal by the end of the fifteenth century.

With these purges, more than eight centuries of Islamic culture in Iberia ended, and the Alhambra remained a witness to the political and religious transformations in the region after it became the seat of the new Catholic rule.

The Ruins of Granada Reveal The Dedication of Muslims to Their Religion

Excavations at the University of Granada campus in Cartuja, a hill on the outskirts of the modern city, revealed traces of human activity dating back to the Neolithic period (3400-3000 BC).

And between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries AD, which is the peak of Islamic Granada, many small houses with gardens and orchards were built on this hill.

In the decades following Catholic rule, a Carthusian monastery was built and the surrounding areas completely transformed, with many earlier buildings demolished.

However, archaeologists discovered a well attached to a house and a plot of agricultural land, but this well was not for water but for another function to protect their true religious identity, according to what was published by The Conversation.

Muslim residents of this house used the well as a dumping ground to dispose of unwanted building materials, along with other waste, including a unique collection of animal bones, dating back to the second quarter of the sixteenth century.

Secret Cooking Practices

Food waste and archaeological deposits – mostly animal bone fragments as well as plant scraps and ceramic tableware – provided an invaluable record of the culinary practices of the inhabitants of the era.

Through the bones of animals, in particular, it is possible to find out the diet that Muslims clutched to, such as not eating pork as an example.

It turns out that most of the bones in the Cartuja well belong to sheep and a small number of livestock. It was also found that the meat was sourced from old sheep and castrated males; Given the type of bone, which indicates a selection of meat-rich portions.

This means that it was bought on the market by professional butchers, rather than being raised by the family.

The ceramics found beside the bones reflect Andalusian eating practices, which involved a group of people sharing food from large bowls called The Attiphors.

The presence of these vessels declined rapidly in Granada in the early 16th century, to be replaced by small bowls, which reflect the individualist approach to dining preferred by Catholic families in the place of Pettiford rather than using The Attiphors.

Therefore, the combination of large plates paired with sheep bones and the absence of pig bones is the greatest evidence that the inhabitants of these houses were a Moorish family.

Politicizing and Controlling Food

At the time, these communal eating practices, which were linked to the Muslim Andalusian identity, were not approved by the Catholic system and were strictly prohibited.

Pork consumption became the most famous expression of the observation of eating habits by the sacred office, more commonly known as the Inquisition.

And while the Inquisition had focused on those suspected of adhering to Jewish practices (banned in 1492), in the second half of the sixteenth century, they increasingly turned their attention to Moriscos suspected of practicing Islam in secret, including by avoiding pork.

In the eyes of the law, these Muslims were officially Catholics, so they were seen as heretics for sticking to their previous faith. Moreover, they considered their religious loyalty equal to their political loyalty, so they became enemies of the state that must be eliminated.

The waste dumped in the Cartuja region, the first such archaeological example from the Moresco House, illustrates how some Andalusian families clung to the culture of Islam by sticking to their traditional food as their world turned upside down, at least for a few decades.