Mecina: Mecinilla

Ned and Marie walked up to Pitres to pick up groceries today, while I returned to Mecinilla hoping to be able to see the ruins of an old almazara (olive oil mill) that was very unusual because it was run by water power rather than by using animals to turn the crushing wheels. I had read that the cubo that carried the water straight down to power the rodezno wheel was still visible, but unfortunately, I could find no sign of it.

I did see a couple of fountains, however, and that got me wondering about the tremendous number of water sources we have seen in this area. I checked on conocetusfuentes.com and found that the seven villages of La Taha alone have 29 fuentes!

Like the intricate system of acequias de riego (irrigation) we see everywhere, the fuentes that run year round are also a function of the acequia system refined during the time of Muslim rule. In the highest parts of the Sierra Nevada, above the level of any of the villages, there are almost 400 kilometers of acequias de ‘careo’. The meaning of careo here is related to the idea of a shepherd caring for a flock. The water is sheparded from the snowfields along topo lines (allowing a gradient of 3% or less) to areas where it can infiltrate the ground via fractures or permeable rocks. In this way, water that would otherwise flow down to the Mediterranean and be gone as soon as the spring runoff was over, is instead housed under the surface in what can be thought of as an invisible giant underground reservoir. When the water filters down far enough that it reaches a layer of impermeable rock, it emerges from the ground as springs or manantiales.

The fact that this system gave year-round access to water allowed the Alpujarra to support a population of around 40,000 before the reconquest of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. After the Reconquest, the two Wars of Rebellion, and the expulsion of the Muslims and Jews, the population plummeted. In spite of the free land and other inducements offered to attract settlers from other areas, the population fell to about 7,000 by the end of the 16th century. There are more than five abandoned villages in the area where we we’ve been walking this week, all with virtually no traces left - a few pieces of pottery at most.Read more