Homes, Households and Neighbourhoods under Almohad Rule

Homes in Almohad-period settlements were organised around practical relationships between access, open space, storage, cooking and rest. At Siyasa, on a hillside beside the Segura valley in southeastern Iberia, excavated houses preserve courtyards, kitchens, stables and sleeping alcoves. Alterations show residents fitting these activities into a dense settlement rather than following one unchanging plan.

The Almohads governed much of the Maghreb and al-Andalus during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Houses often lasted through political changes, and surviving phases may precede or outlast direct Almohad control. Siyasa is particularly useful for examining this continuity because its occupation includes expansion, internal rebuilding and eventual abandonment.

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A settlement with several phases

Siyasa’s origins reach back to the eleventh century, with substantial growth in the later twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Regional studies estimate nearly 800 houses at its height. This figure describes the settlement’s reconstructed scale; the smaller excavated area provides the detailed room plans.

Murcia broke from Almohad rule in 1228 and accepted Castilian protection in 1243. The agreement preserved Muslim property and customs in return for tribute and control of fortresses. After the revolt of 1264–1266, Siyasa gradually lost population; by about 1272 its Muslim community had largely departed. Later settlers altered some buildings before abandoning the hillside for the area of modern Cieza.

Entrances, animals and a central courtyard

A vestibule, or zaguan, mediated between street and courtyard. A turn in the entrance screened the interior from a direct view through the door. Stables could open from this space or directly onto the street, allowing animals to enter without crossing the family’s inner rooms. Mangers identify where animals were fed.

The courtyard connected the principal rooms. Open air and light reached the building’s interior, while porticoes supplied covered space along its edges. Rooms could be reached from this shared centre rather than through a long internal corridor. Stairs and galleries added access to upper floors where the hillside left little room for expanding outward.

Cooking, reception and sleeping

Kitchens at Siyasa included hearths, pantry structures and low working benches. Keeping the provisions and vessels near a defined fire space made preparation possible within one side of the house. These fixed installations distinguished the kitchen from rooms whose furnishings could be moved more readily.

Long reception rooms could have sleeping alcoves at one or both ends. Curtains or partitions separated the alcove, allowing a more enclosed resting space beside a room used for sitting and receiving visitors. Built benches and bedding supplied surfaces that could serve more than one activity over the day.

Some doorways carried elaborate carved decoration. Houses 10 and 6 have been presented in the modern museum through reconstructions incorporating original architectural elements. The excavated fragments document the workmanship, while the reconstructed rooms help explain how decorated openings related to courtyards and halls.

Water, washing and waste

Water jars stood in designated areas near the courtyard. A tinajero was a space for the large storage vessels and related equipment, sometimes accompanied by a small basin. Keeping water within the house supported drinking, cooking, cleaning and ritual washing. Smaller jugs could bring it from storage to the room where it was needed.

A latrine could be reached through a narrow passage at a courtyard corner. Waste passed through a floor opening towards a cesspit or down the hillside. These arrangements separated bodily functions from the principal reception spaces and required continuing attention to drainage and stored water.

Maghrebi excavation supplies another setting. At Igiliz in Morocco’s Anti-Atlas, the fortified centre associated with the movement’s early 1120s beginnings had six structures identified as latrines. This was a mountain religious and political community, whose sanitation installations place bodily needs within the built provision of the early movement.

Houses within a larger community

Siyasa’s streets linked residences with the fortified settlement and the agricultural land below. Courtyards and screened entrances created interior household space, while stables, doorways and shared routes connected residents with work beyond the house. Supplies and water had to move through those connections.

Rebuilding could create an upper floor, change a doorway or rearrange rooms around a courtyard. Such changes altered the resources available to the people sharing the building. The household emerges through these practical decisions about space and access, alongside the wider political events that eventually changed who lived in the settlement.

For the wider setting, see Daily Life in Almohad Communities across the Maghreb and al-Andalus.