On 27 October, the Sayalonga Moorish Museum opened its doors to visitors, who used their five senses in a brand-new experience. The museum is dedicated to show the architecture, culture and folk traditions of the Moors who lived in the Axarquía.
Besides its permanent collection of paintings by Sayalonga-born artist Adolfo Córdoba, the Moorish Museum opened with an exhibition of works by two artists from the Axarquía: painter Ana Patricia Radial and photographer Eva Guzmán. The works on display had a common theme, the dreamlike world of nymphs, and appeal to the ear, smell and touch as well as to the eye. They came to life thanks to their authors’ presence in the room. In addition, a film on Sayalonga and the museum by young local director Gonzalo de Quinta was screened.
Expected to have 10,000 visitors a year, the museum is intended to become the starting point of the Mudéjar Route through the Axarquía, which includes Sayalonga and shows those who take it the constructions, foods, folklore and culture of the Moors living in the region, as well as sites of the 1569-1571 Moorish-Christian war and the subsequent Moorish exile.
The Moorish Museum is a typical Moorish house whose kitchen displays typical utensils and foods and in whose living room visitors will be able to see human models in everyday situations, wearing traditional costumes and doing what people did when the Moors lived in the Iberian Peninsula.
Another room has been dedicated to Moorish architecture, making reference to the Mudéjar Route through the Axarquía and other Mudéjar monuments in the region. There will be still another room, paying homage to the Moors’ history in Sayalonga, reconstructed through archaeological remnants and traces and focusing on the wars the Moors engaged in when they lived in Spanish territory and their expulsion from Spain.
The museum is endowed with an audio/video room where visitors can watch a film and learn about these peoples and their history, as well as about must-visit sites and monuments. The film will be screened in Spanish, English and German.
At the museum, scholars will be able to find all Moor-related documents and journals available in the province, for all the papers and publications that used to be stored at the Sayalonga Town Hall will be transferred to an area that will also include the Sayalonga Historic Archives, where visitors will have access to original 18th century books and facsimiles of 16th century treasures.
