Baza

Baza spreads across the Hoya de Baza, an elevated valley not far from the Gallego River, with the dome-shaped Jabalcón rising above the town to the north-west. Its high position and corridor toward Murcia helped make it a place of consequence long before the later town took shape. Iberian founders called it Basti in the fourth century BCE. Roman rule brought commercial activity and an early bishopric, while the Bishopric of Basti was already represented at the Council of Elvira in 306. During Islamic rule Baza guarded a frontier and developed into one of the three most important cities of the Kingdom of Granada, a major commercial centre whose population was said to exceed fifty thousand. Castilian forces took the city in 1489 after a stubborn seven-month siege. The Lady of Baza, an Iberian sculpture found in the area later, connects the town to that deeper past. Later the churches of Basti and Acci were joined, and Baza retained a collegiate church with authority over twelve parishes.