The central claim of this monograph is to disseminate documental and archaeological studies (2016–17) on Alhambra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984. The publication explains the outcomes of the research project Royal Workshops of the Alhambra financed by the Patronato de la Alhambra y Generalife in collaboration with the Universities of Granada, Leicester, Bournemouth, and Newcastle. The study was made on the zone known as Secano, literally “unirrigated land,” to undertake the geochemical survey of its areas, to check the concentration of heavy metals in the surface soil, and to integrate those results into what was already known about the zone. Secano had been granted by Isabella of Castle and Ferdinand of Aragon to loyal nobility for their residences, destroying the irrigation system of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. Leopoldo Torres Balbás discovered this urban zone and described it, and the present monograph follows his studies (Leopoldo Torres Balbás, “La Alhambra de Granada antes del siglo XIII,” Al-Ándalus 5 [1940]: 171).
The introduction motivates research interest in Secano with a clear explanation of aims, terminology, and research method. Chapter 1, by María del Carmen Jiménez Roldán, explains the historical background and development of the zone. The exhaustive analysis resumes state-of-the-art research on the Alhambra, including the origin of the place and medieval period (Antonio Almagro Gorbea, “Ciudades palatinas en el Islam,” Cuadernos de la Alhambra 38 [2002]: 11) and the early modern industrialization that changed the district's architectonical distribution (Almagro Gorbea, 12–13). Chapter 9, by María Elena Díez Jorge, studies documents (principally cadasters, records of construction, and notarial acts) that shed light on the area's history and industrial activities. This research affirms that the city's architectural ceramic production continued the Nasrid tradition, restoring spaces just as they had been before, especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (150–51).
Chapters 2 to 4 cover the framework of geophysical survey techniques applied by the team and the outcomes of the archaeological works. Initially, such non-intrusive methods as conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, and ground-penetrating radar were considered most appropriate for this, the team's first study on the zone; the archaeological sequence was unknown, and the ground response to other techniques needed to be clarified (20). An underground map was duly created, and the subsequent methodology and excavation strategy were determined (67). Its results also provided new information about kilns and pyrotechnic activity in the district; Juan Manuel Ríos Jiménez and Miguel Busto Zapico's study thence explains kiln typology (A–G) and attempts to build a stratigraphy. However, researchers emphasize the need for excavations to verify their hypotheses (42).
Chapters 5 and 6 describe two trenches investigated using handheld portable X-ray Fluorescence (pXRF): the first, led by Moisés Alonso-Valladares and Alberto García Porras, provides information on the distribution patterns of elements used in ceramic glazes over the area and across time. The study's authors point out that the trench shows the need to reconsider the history of pottery production in Granada since workshops in Alhambra were active not only in the Middle Ages but also later (82). A second trench situated in the hitherto little-studied area north of the southern wall, guided by Ben Moore and Eleonora Montanari, failed to provide the date and specific function of the Kiln A type. However, the authors specify an archaeological illustration of the degree of disruption suffered by the area from the nineteenth century and confirm the dynamic of the construction process in early modern times.
Chapters 7 and 8 summarize discoveries of pottery and glass, mainly pre-eighteenth century, with a technical focus on production techniques. In the case of pottery, researchers highlighted a lack of luxury products, commonplace domestic ware dominating (130). Similarly, the glass study indicates that few fragments of perfume bottles and decorative or ornamental objects are dated to the Nasrid or early modern periods. The most common finds were bottles, drinking glasses, and pharmaceutical containers, with no firm evidence of manufacturing found (144).
Undoubtedly, this research output can be used by archaeology students to understand the methodology applied to the case of Secano. The monograph shows a new face of the Alhambra that, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, lost its function as a palatium, becoming a residential area of industrial and domestic activities.
