Court of the Lions - Granada, Spain
Posted by: 
neoc1
N 37° 10.621 W 003° 35.356
30S E 447690 N 4114672
The Court of the Lions gets its name from the famous fountain at the Alhambra that has an interesting history.
Waymark Code: WMC1DY
Location: Andalucía, Spain
Date Posted: 07/14/2011
Views: 21
The Court of Lions is in the center of the Alhambra. It was commissioned by Emirate of Granada, Sultan Muhammed V of the Nasrid dynasty and built sometime between 1362 and 1391 AD.
The Court of the Lions, is unusual because it has both Moorish and foreign influences. In the center of the court is the Fountain of the Lions. Twelve figures of lions support a basin which contains the fountain. This seemingly violates the Muslim prohibition on displaying of images of animals and people. Originally, the lions were created by Jews not Muslims. They were part of the Naghrela Palace taken over by the Muslims after 1066. Their re-use in the Alhambra was justified since they were not crafted by Muslims.
The fountain is modelled after the Fountain of the Temple of Solomon, described in the Old Testament Books of Chronicles, with lions replacing the bulls.
2 Chronicles 4
The Temple’s Furnishings
1 He made a bronze altar twenty cubits long, twenty cubits wide and ten cubits high.
2 He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
3 Below the rim, figures of bulls encircled it—ten to a cubit. The bulls were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea.
The stamp is part of a set of ten pictorial stamps issued by Spain in 1964.
Stamp Issuing Country: Spain
Date of Issue: 1964
Denomination: 1 paseta
Color: violet blue and purple
Stamp Type: Single Stamp
Relevant Web Site: [Web Link]
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