La supuesta basílica de San Vicente en Córdoba: de mito histórico a obstinación historiográfica

Abstract

Underneath the Great-Mosque of Cordoba, there are some archaeological remains which have been the origin of several historiographical debates. The core of these debates was the idea that there were previous Christian buildings in the site later demolished to make room for the Umayyad mosque. However, the documented church of Saint Vincent, for the astonishment of many, did not appear in the excavations made in the 1930s. Much later, set aside the myth, but never truly forgotten, the idea that there might have been a full episcopal complex suceeded the other. Recent historigraphical developments are building new interpretations upon an archaeological evidence, that drove archaeologists, in the past, to deny definitively the presence of these ecclesiastical premises. This article argues what others have already stated: that according to the present archaeological knowledge, no evidence shows that there were previous Christian buildings under the Umayyad mosque. In terms of our conclusions, the article is not original. The main aim of this contribution is to offer a new and neccesary contextualizacion of textual and archaeological interpretations of emphirical data.