Níjar

Níjar is far more than a village: it is the seat of a vast municipality, the largest in the province of Almería, which looks out over the Mediterranean and takes in almost forty settlements, among them San José, San Isidro de Níjar and Campohermoso. Its historic centre, listed among Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España (the Most Beautiful Villages in Spain) since 2019, is the ideal starting point for exploring one of the most distinctive landscapes in the south of the Peninsula.

Much of the municipality is protected within the Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park, recognised by UNESCO as a Geopark in 1999. Here, the volcanic land explains a great deal: as far back as Roman times, volcanic stone quarries, alum mines and salt pans were being worked, alongside fishing – activities that left behind remains of hydraulic structures, roads and burials, and even finds beneath the sea.

But Níjar's history begins much earlier. At Los Escullos, stone figures have been found that point to a human presence some ten thousand years ago, in the middle of the Mesolithic. Later, during the late Neolithic and the Copper Age, settlements related to the Los Millares culture emerged, followed in the Bronze Age by others linked to the El Argar culture. El Barranquete preserves a Chalcolithic necropolis, associated with the Tarajal settlement, with eleven tholos tombs, and the Huebro ravine has also yielded notable finds. Excavations began in the 19th century with Luis Siret, and in 1943 Georg Leisner documented the necropolises of Las Peñicas and El Tejar.

The Cabo de Gata coast, a fine natural harbour, drew the Phoenicians between the 8th and 6th centuries BC and perhaps the Carthaginians too, who are credited with a possible temple: Avienus's Ora Maritima appears to mention a sanctuary dedicated to Aphrodite on the hill of La Testa. Later, in Byzantine times, when it was governed from Carthago Spartaria, the area suffered raids from North Africa. Strolling through Níjar is, in essence, a journey through all these layers at once.