La recepción de las Maravillas de la Antigüedad en España a través de los testimonios de viajeros a Egipto entre el s. XII y los albores del XVI

Abstract

The aim of this study is to analyse the news about the Pyramids and the Lighthouse of Alexandria within the framework of the Iberian Peninsula between the Full Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modern Age through the examination of the testimonies of travellers from al-Andalus and the Christian kingdoms. It also seeks to demonstrate the importance of these travels in the transmission of knowledge about Egypt’s great monuments and the influence of the diverse education and religious-cultural context of each of the travellers when describing them. Likewise, the reception of these texts will be reviewed in order to consider their role in visual conceptions about these wonders and the establishment of archetypes. The studied sources include, for the case of Arab travellers from al-Andalus, descriptions by al-Gharnati and al-Balawi; the testimony of the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela; and the writings of the Christian travellers Pedro Tafur and Pedro Martir de Angleria. The analysis highlights the importance of travel as a direct method of knowledge about ancient monuments and as a way to contrast the information received from older sources, whether written or visual. On the other hand, it has been found that the greater or lesser accuracy of the collected data by these travellers in their descriptions has much to do with the different education, personal cultural level and influence of the religious-cultural context of each of them.