Information about Fuente de Piedra - Andalucia

Fuente de Piedra - History

Fuente de Piedra is located in the northern part of the Antequera region and borders on the province of Seville. Its landscape, although ideal for olives and grain, revolves around the famous shallow lake with the same name as the village, Fuente de Piedra. This is one of the largest wetlands in Spain and the first on the Iberian Peninsular to be a massive breeding ground for flamingos, making it of incalculable ecological value.

The lake also must have been a kind of attraction for prehistoric human settlement in this area, judging by remains that have been discovered from the Upper Paleolithic period. The area was then inhabited until the time of the Iberians, who established commercial contacts with Phoenicians and Carthaginians.

The Romans occupied the area in about the second century B. C., and named it Fons Divinus (Divine Fountain). This was in reference to the curative properties of its waters, especially for the “stone disorder” (kidney stones). That is probably the origin of the name of the village, Fuente de Piedra (Stone Fountain). The many archaeological sites that have been found from the Roman period indicate the importance that the area must have had.

After the Battle of El Madroño in 1461, Don Rodrigo Ponce de León drove out the Muslims, with the result that the place was uninhabited until 1547, when the authorities in Antequera saw fit to create a kind of centre where people suffering from kidney disorders could be sent to seek relief from their maladies in the waters of the fountain. The curative nature of these waters was responsible for a notable increase in commerce in the area, a c based on the export of the water, which was transported to the Kingdom of Naples and even as far as America. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were particularly prosperous because of the marketing of the waters and because of the many travellers who came to take them. A prolonged drought that helped spread epidemics, however, put an end to the economic boom, since the outbreak was attributed to the vapours of the fountain water, which had become stagnant.

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