Murtas

Overlooking the village of Murtas from the top of the hill, a vast piece of land spreading from the peaks of Sierra Nevada to the Mediterranean can be seen.

It shares the typical features of all Alpujarra villages, i.e. a distinctive type of architecture in the buildings, adapted to the structure of the irregular land and to the climate of the area, which is characterized by narrow streets with memories of a Moorish past.

In the heart of the Alpujarra, a unique natural connection between the Mediterranean coast and Sierra Nevada, where the highest peaks of the Peninsula are located, Murtas is a place to visit as part of the Alpujarra route.

In the municipality of Murtas lies the old farmhouse lands of Mecina Tedel from the Arab Andalusian period.

History

The municipality of Murtas has been inhabited by human settlements ever since Neolithic times.

In the Nasrid period it was part of the Taha de Sahil.

After the Christian re-conquest of Granada in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs, the population suffered to an unbearable extreme and thus, in 1568, Hernando de Córdoba y Válor, a rich landowner proclaimed himself as Abén Humeya, uprising against Phillip ll, causing a general revolt amongst the Moors from all over the kingdom of Granada.

Internal disagreements amongst the Moors, who in 1569 assassinated Abén Humeya, allowed Don Juan de Austria to terminate this revolt.

The Moors were eventually expelled in 1609.

The Alpujarra was later inhabited by peasants from Galicia, León, Asturias and Castile.