EXCERPT FROM SARA’S JOURNALApril 11, 1999
Calle Conde de Barajas, Seville
The River
Between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean there was an ancient sea
called the Miocene. It pushed into the Iberian Peninsula until it became a gulf. With the
formation of a barrier, the gulf became an immense lake known as Ligustus. An unnamed
river gradually filled the basin of the lake with its water and silt until it became a
great plain—half-land, half water, dotted with islands and salt lakes. After
centuries, persistent sedimentation made it a marshland, with a lazy river flowing
sluggishly towards the sea down the most meager of inclines.
The oldest-known name given to this waterway is Tartessos. The Greeks
spoke of it in 600 BC as the river of Seville. In pre-Roman times it bore the name of
Certis. The Romans called it Baetis, deriving from a Celtic, Iberian or Ligurian root baet,
or water. Arabs, who followed the Romans and Visigoths, spoke of it as Nahr Qurtube
until as late as the 11th century, when the nahr was replaced by wad.
Then they baptized it wadi al Azim-The Magnificent, or wadi al Kabir-Great
River. Today it is called Guadalquivir.
Its story is emblematic of Spain’s diverse cultural history. Its
banks have been fertile grounds for the civilizations that prospered here. From Europe, it
was a highway to Rome for the Suebi, Vandals, Alans and other tribes. From the
Mediterranean the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans sailed it north in search of tin and
silver. From Africa, Berbers, Almoravids, and Almohads came thirstily to its fertile
shores. From Castile, Christians came as land repopulators and turned its mosques and
minarets into churches and towers. In 1492 the river’s Atlantic mouth was the source
of the western explorations of the Americas, and as a result it won Seville the enviable
exclusive rights to trade with the New World. At its physical and cultural height, ships
sailed the Guadalquivir from the port of Seville as far as the British Isles, the
Netherlands and Rome with cargos of agricultural produce and mineral ores.
The river was moody. Its unruly foundation caused regular flooding and
shifting. The Romans had even built artificial dykes and dams to regulate and level out
the river’s course. Spanish poets described it as avenging water, which destroyed
homes, spread hunger and disease and impeded navigation. When it wasn’t flooding it
was silting up with sandbars, low water and insufficient flow. It required regular
dredging and cleaning. Floods and wash from cargo ships were hard on the wooden bridges
that sometimes connected the western, gypsy-populated Triana and the eastern, city centre.
Often boats were simply moored together to bridge the two banks. The extraction of clay by
the potters of Triana and the ditching of rubble and ballast aggravated the situation
further. By the 18th century navigation of the Guadalquivir was onerous due to
excessive meandering and insufficient depth. It flooded half a dozen times that century
and eventually the bridges collapsed and isolated Seville entirely, cutting supply routes
and encouraging the plague.
