The little-known caliphal quarries of Almería that rise to the north, in the Cerro de las Mellizas served to supply the city with calcarenite stone since the time of the founding of the medina with the Caliph Abderramán IIIin the year 955, until the year 1147 because they ended the resource and were abandoned. With the stone that came out From this group of quarries, Almeria infrastructures were built such as the Alcazaba, the walls and the towers. Today, they are preserved in very good condition, forming a space of enormous importance for the study of the strong>medieval stone extraction techniques, the construction periods of the city and economic fluctuations
These quarries occupy an area of about 140,000 meters square and present three basic typologies: open pit with vertical slopes, open pit with shallow sections and cave-quarries with horizontal development for the extraction of blocks with characteristic specific statics. Among the latter, La Campsa and Covarrón stand out since they are the oldest used during the Caliphate era. In all of them you can still see that they were worked with hand tools and if we stand at the top we can still see the space occupied by the forklift machinery shed and some blocks cut in the stone using drill bits, wedges and chisels. In the 20th century, during the Civil War this space was used as a shelter for the civilian population during bombings, as a fuel depot, as Army magazines and even as a set for filming from the movie Conanthe Barbarian. A few years ago, the entire Caliphate Quarries were declared A Site of Cultural Interest by the Andalusian Government.
Exterior monument.