Here is the seventh episode of my podcast about life in Spain:
For the transcript, see below:
Hello.
I have to begin this letter on a somber note. This Monday, November 25, was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This issue is a big concern in Spain. It seems like there is always a story on the news about a woman who was murdered by a partner, or about men who have sexually abused women without facing consequences. So far this year, 52 women have been killed by their partners, and only 11 of them had filed any kind of police report beforehand. I am sometimes asked by Spaniards if we in America have such a big violence against women problem. Though I am inclined to say yes, it strikes me that in America we do not discuss domestic violence nearly as often as they do here in Spain.
So I decided to see if I could find some figures that I could compare between the two countries. In the United States, in 2005, 1,181 women were killed by an intimate partner. For that same year in Spain, 63 women were killed by partners or ex-partners. Keeping in mind that the population of Spain is about one-seventh the population of the United States, the American figure is still much bigger. So it seems that we in America have a much worse domestic violence problem than they have here in Spain. Though it is sad news, to me it is not very surprising. The easy access to guns in America makes all forms of violence more common, or at least more deadly. The reason we don’t talk about domestic violence as much in America as in Spain, I think, is that in America all of our conversations about violence end up being arguments about guns. In Spain, the issue is normally framed more as a cultural problem—the culture of machismo.
As tempting as it would be now to launch into a rant about American gun violence or machista culture, this episode is focused on a slightly more peaceful topic (well, maybe not): the history of Spain. This past weekend, I finally took the time to revisit one of the great museums in Madrid: the Museo de Arqueología Nacional (the National Archaeology Museum). It is a bit out of the way for most tourists, though not much. The museum is housed in the same enormous building as the National Library, which is also worth a visit, if only to see the ornate façade complete with sculptures of iconic Spanish writers (like Lope de Vega or Cervantes). The Archaeology Museum is huge, and fascinating, and very cheap: only three euros, and free on Saturday afternoons.
The museum goes through the prehistory and history of Spain from the earliest times to the early modern period (about the 1700s). Human ancestors have been in the Iberian peninsula for at least one million years. Quite a long time. One of the most famous early-hominid sites in Spain is Atapuerca, near the city of Burgos. (Researchers are still debating what species to assign to the fossils found there.) Around 200,000 years ago, the Neanderthals set up shop in Iberia, and began making all sorts of little sharp stone tools. There were probably homo sapiens, too, and it is possible the two species interbred. They at least influenced one another’s technology. By far the most famous artifact left by the prehistoric humans of Iberia are the cave paintings in Altamira, which were made around 36,000 years ago. The archaeology museum has a beautiful replica of these caves near the entrance, made using traditional methods. If we can judge by these cave paintings, two things have occupied the Spanish for a very, very long time: painting and bulls.
Soon enough in the museum’s collection we get to the development of agriculture, permanent settlements, pottery, metallurgy, and all of the other dubious developments of sedentary life. Sometime around 500 BCE, the Celts came into Spain. (And I bet a lot of people didn’t know that the Celts were in Spain.) You can still see traces of their culture in the northwest corner of the country, Galicia. Meanwhile, the Phonecians (from northern Africa) began to colonize the south of the peninsula. The city of Cádiz has been inhabited since around 1,000 BCE, making it the oldest city in Spain. A bit later, the Greeks started landing on the East coast, establishing the city of Empúries, which is in modern-day Catalonia. They did this around 600 BCE.
Under the influence of the Greeks and the Phoenecians, a new indigenous culture eventually emerged in the East Peninsula, which is now called simply the Iberian culture. The museum has quite a few beautiful examples of Iberian sculpture, such as the so-called Lady of Elche—an imposing woman with Princess Leia hair. In general, Iberian sculpture is distinguished from the typical Greek style by its abstract stylization. Its rediscovery in the early 20th century influenced Picasso. But the culture was not to last, since the Iberian Peninsula eventually was the site of the Punic wars—the clash between Ancient Rome and Hannibal’s Carthage. Rome won, of course, and then incorporated Iberia into the ever-growing Roman Empire. Iberia then became Hispania, and its culture became roman.
You don’t need to go to the archaeology museum to see evidence of Rome’s influence. There are Roman ruins in Segovia, Mérida, and Tarragona, to pick just three examples. But you don’t even need to look that far: the whole Spanish language evolved from Latin. The museum has some wonderful examples of metal sheets on which Roman laws were published. I like to imagine a Roman lawyer doing his research on a rainy day, standing in his toga outside in the plaza, bent over, reading these laws. In any case, the Romans really Romanized Spain: they built aqueducts, temples, fortresses, bath houses, dams, lighthouses, roads, theaters, amphitheaters—tons of stuff. Talk about a colonial mindset. But at least they had a sense of style. The archaeology museum in Madrid has some beautiful samples of Roman floor and wall mosaics, which in my opinion are in better taste than any of our interior decoration.
Rome lasted a long, long time. Spain was controlled by the Romans for about 700 years, which left an indelible mark on the country. But eventually Rome declined and fell. This left a huge power vacuum, which allowed the Visigoths to move in from the north of Europe. The museum has a few interesting artifacts from this period, but really it was not a time that left a huge archaeological footprint. After all, these were the Dark Ages. The Visigoths only enjoyed their time on top for about 200 years, until they were crushed by the invading Muslims, who came in from across the Strait of Gibraltar.
This was the beginning of Al-Andalus, or Moorish Spain. (The word moro in Spanish is considered slightly offensive, but in English “Moorish” is standard.) This was actually another cultural high point in the history of the peninsula. While most of Europe was still slowly crawling its way back from the Dark Ages, Moorish Spain was an advanced place. New crops and agricultural techniques were introduced, major philosophers like Averroes and Moses Maimonides lived and wrote, and beautiful buildings were constructed, like the Great Mosque of Cordoba or the Alhambra in Granada. The Archaeology Museum has some amazing examples of Moorish art and architecture, as well as some works made by Christians in a Moorish style (which is called mudéjar). The Moors left a sizable linguistic heritage, too, as thousands of Spanish words come from Arabic.
Eventually the power of the Moors fractured, and the power of the Christians in the north grew and consolidated. After many centuries of battles, shifting alliances, and gradual conquest, the Christians pushed south until the last Moorish kingdom—Granada—fell in 1492, and modern Spain was born. Soon the country entered its Golden Age as the pre-eminent global superpower, with colonies all around the world (thanks partly to Columbus), and most of Europe under its thumb. But this was not to last. By the 1700s, Spain was a decidedly second-rate power in Europe, even if it still managed to hang on to its colonies. The museum has some lovely objects from the Enlightenment in Spain, but it must be said that the Age of Reason was a tame affair here compared with, say, France or England.
This is when the museum’s collection ends. You must go elsewhere if you want to trace Spain’s history to the present day. Even so, I think this brief story gives a taste of why travelling in Spain is so fascinating. So many different cultures shared this relatively small bit of land, and they are all piled up on top of each other. In a single day, you can go from a gothic cathedral, to a Roman bridge, to a Moorish mosque. The cave paintings of Altamira, for example, are situated right next to a beautiful medieval village. This is something that we just don’t have in America, mostly because European colonization so completely wiped out the indigenous cultures.
Speaking of European colonization, I should also mention Thanksgiving before I end this podcast. Of course, Thanksgiving in Spain means precisely: nothing. Thursday is a work day just like any other. Well, my brother got the day off somehow, but in my case I’ll spend Thanksgiving giving presentations about Thanksgiving to Spanish children who must go through this every year. But I do think that Thanksgiving encapsulates America like no other holiday can. What do we do? We eat until we’re sick, we watch men tackling each other on television, or we watch giant floating cartoons, or we argue about politics, and then the next day we all go shopping for things we don’t need. It is America in a nutshell. My own Thanksgiving celebrations will have to wait until Friday. There is no way a whole turkey is going to fit inside my little tabletop oven. Well, I’ll figure it out.
For now, I’m thankful to be here.
Lotz in Translation 