Restoration of the northern section of the wall of Talamanca de Jarama

The General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Community of Madrid promoted in 2016 a series of investigations with the aim of obtaining additional information on the layout of the Talamanca de Jarama wall. Among the tasks carried out, the carrying out of electromagnetic surveys by means of georadar and the execution of numerous stratigraphic surveys in strategic places stand out, which confirmed the existence of a section of wall with square towers under the north wall of La Cartuja.

According to Torres Balbás, the Islamic nucleus of Talamanca is in the surroundings of the current Santa María street, where there was a parish church called Nuestra Señora de la Almudena, located in "the highest place within the walls, next to the fence, at noon and on the high escarpment at whose foot the stream of Valdejudíos runs. ” One would be speaking of a fortified center of rather reduced dimensions, which was formed in the XNUMXth century and whose function was fundamentally military, as a control zone for passage to the north.

Until the conquest of Alfonso VI, between 1079 and 1085, two periods could be established that would correspond to separate settlement areas within the urban fabric of Talamanca. An emral period (XNUMXth century), corresponding to the founding period, located in the surroundings of the current Santa María street, which would present a predominantly defensive function and a later one, caliphate, which would correspond to the expansion of the population around the nucleus primal.

The urban layout of Talamanca de Jarama comprised between the southern part of the walls, the Travesía del Viento to the west and the Cartuja area has an eminently medieval character, with narrow, winding streets that make up a disorderly and to a certain extent chaotic network. . The urban space in Caliphate times would consist of a center located within the aforementioned walled perimeter and another area that would extend to the east, corresponding to the Albaicín, possibly productive in nature and with constructions attached to the wall. Under Christian rule, the previous settlement area would remain, although in the XNUMXth century and especially in the XNUMXth century, when Talamanca is under the ecclesiastical dominion of Toledo and due to the boom of the town, the town its perimeter around the previous nucleus would increase and repairs would be carried out, modifying the invoice of the wall.

It is probably to these moments, from the twelfth century, to which the great stretch of wall over 100 meters long and the seven towers, six of them in good condition, documented in the archaeological intervention, can be ascribed.

This important finding has allowed us to define the limit of the medieval farmhouse to the north, expanding our knowledge of the walled route of Talamanca.