Archaeoseismological Evidence of Seismic Damage at Medina Azahara (Córdoba, Spain) from the Early 11th Century
Publicated to:Applied Sciences-Basel. 13 (3): 1601- - 2023-02-01 13(3), DOI: 10.3390/app13031601
Authors: Rodríguez-Pascua, MA; Perucha, MA; Silva, PG; Córdoba, AJM; Giner-Robles, JL; Élez, J; Bardají, T; Roquero, E; Sánchez-Sánchez, Y
Affiliations
Abstract
The “Caliphal City of Medina Azahara” was built in 936–937 CE or 940–941 CE (depending on the source) by the first Caliph of al-Andalus Abd al-Rahman III, being recently inscribed (2018) on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The abandonment and destruction of the city have been traditionally related to the civil war (“fitna”) that started between 1009 and 1010 CE. However, we cannot rule out other causes for the rapid depopulation and plundering of the city just a few decades after its foundation. The archaeoseismological study provides the first clues on the possible role played by an earthquake in the sudden abandonment and ruin of the city. Eleven different types of Earthquake Archaeological Effects (EAEs) have been identified, such as dropped key stones in arches, tilted walls, conjugated fractures in brick-made walls, conjugated fractures and folds in regular pavements and dipping broken corners in columns, among others. Besides that, 163 structural measures on EAEs were surveyed resulting in a mean ground movement direction of N140°–160° E. This geological structural analysis clearly indicates a building-oriented damage, which can be reasonably attributed to an earthquake that devastated Medina Azahara during the 11st or 12th centuries CE. If this were the case, two strong earthquakes (≥VIII MSK/EMS) occurred in 1024–1025 CE and 1169–1170 CE could be the suspected causative events of the damage and destruction of the city.
Keywords
Quality index
Bibliometric impact. Analysis of the contribution and dissemination channel
The work has been published in the journal Applied Sciences-Basel due to its progression and the good impact it has achieved in recent years, according to the agency WoS (JCR), it has become a reference in its field. In the year of publication of the work, 2023, it was in position 44/181, thus managing to position itself as a Q1 (Primer Cuartil), in the category Engineering, Multidisciplinary.
From a relative perspective, and based on the normalized impact indicator calculated from the Field Citation Ratio (FCR) of the Dimensions source, it yields a value of: 8.06, which indicates that, compared to works in the same discipline and in the same year of publication, it ranks as a work cited above average. (source consulted: Dimensions Jul 2025)
Specifically, and according to different indexing agencies, this work has accumulated citations as of 2025-07-26, the following number of citations:
- WoS: 4
- Scopus: 4