If a stranger walks through the historic center of Baza one morning, it is logical that he will find more closed businesses than people.. The good observer, if he pays attention, could also begin to tell the contrast in a heritage city, almost a ghost, where there is a dream postcard between white streets and the ruins of buildings that, at some point, it is sensed, were imposing..
The city of Granada is a heritage jewel in the province, although forgotten like few others.. The entire region has lost, according to some studies, almost 25% of its population in the last 30 years. An Iberian sculpture, the Lady of Baza, was found there more than 50 years ago, whose departure from the city still means for many the symbol of oblivion and isolation..
It was found in 1971, still in the midst of Franco's regime, on the slope of Cerro del Santuario. The old heritage regulations allowed the person who subsidized the excavation work to keep a part of the archaeological material found.. Up ahead was the archaeologist Francisco Presedo. The work, financed by the Catalan businessman Pere Durán. As soon as he found it, he did not hesitate to donate it to the State almost immediately upon hearing the news..
After almost 2000 years buried, it was moved to Madrid, to the National Archaeological Museum. And until today. The Bastetan municipal archaeologist, Lorenzo Sánchez, says, after 25 years as a municipal technician, that in his career he has gone “up to four times for it.”. None successful. The latest report from the Ministry of Culture in this regard, as is the case with the other Ladies, such as the one in Elche, is clear: Its transfer “would entail irreparable losses for the sculpture.”. Transportation, complex in its very conception, makes it impossible for him to return home.
The Lady's Shadow
The lady is, however, just that, a symbol. Looking at the historic center of Baza on a map, you can see a metaphor for the true heritage reality that exists in the city.. In the center, the Municipal Archaeological Museum, small, but cared for in detail, dedicated almost entirely to the Iberian era. Around it, the contrast with the twenty monuments designated by Hispania Nostra as in imminent danger of disappearance.
The association dedicated to the defense of heritage has always made it clear that it is more of an x-ray, a symptom of how residents perceive the treatment of the historical legacy.. Baza has been shamefully leading the red list in all of Spain for years and there are even those who point to the Lady as a smokescreen to cover up everything else.. Among those included in the list there is an amalgamation of buildings with artistic-historical styles and stages that can barely be seen on their walls..
Namely: the Alcazaba of Baza, the Torre Pesquera Castle, the church and convent of San Antón, the Enríquez Palace, the Episcopal Palace of Baza, the House of the Páez de Espinosa, the Jerónimos Oil Mill, the Freila Castle Tower, the church of San Luis, the Hermitage of San Sebastián de Baza, the Holy Fountain or Alcántara, the Tower of the Five Corners, the Towers of the Magdalena Gate, the Baíco Wetland, the Espinosa Tower, Benzalema Castle, the Morería Baths, the Palace of the Marquises of Cadimo and the Convent of San Jerónimo.
Some are privately owned, others are public. Some are considered Assets of Cultural Interest (BIC), others are simply cataloged on a smaller scale.. Others have a fairly relative historical importance, although they could well be, if not found in Baza, the figurehead of the cultural policy of a good number of towns in Spain.. The City Council insists that the count of heritage spaces on the list is somewhat artificial, also crossed by political issues, as in all places.. But just visiting the areas, the degradation in some is more than palpable.
It could be said that, in general, of so much monumental space that there is, the neighbors barely take it into account or even know, or at least debate, about its history. The ruins are almost normalized. There is a key aspect that stands out as soon as you talk to any of them: a good part of all these infrastructures already had a use before they were considered heritage. When the Heritage Law of the Junta de Andalucía was legislated in 1991, this heritage awareness was not scarce, but rather non-existent.
The importance of protecting infrastructure and why to do it is relatively new. “Some cloisters were used as car or bus workshops,” for example. The clearest case is found in the esplanade that crowns the Alcazaba. There, in the 80s, concerts were given. All types. “Sabina was there,” without going any further. Currently, as if it were a UFO fallen from the sky, there is a newly created building dedicated to Social Services in front of a sinkhole through which it is easy to fall.. In the background one of those cloisters, which decades ago was transported there “without much meaning” and which is full of graffiti where meaning is also conspicuous by its absence.. Around, rubble and garbage.
After years and years of neglect, the previous government team presented the rehabilitation project for the eastern area in 2023. There was just over a month left for the municipal elections, yes.. The Government will provide 1.9 million euros to restore it after a critical neglect that is still perceived in the twenty monuments that appear on the aforementioned red list and for which, with the exception of rare cases and patches, there is no glimpse of a solution. comprehensive rehabilitation in the medium term.
A revulsive
In that landscape, Baza, like most towns in Empty Spain, lives a vicious circle. The heritage abandoned to its fate could be part of the change, but the ghostly atmosphere easily takes over the towns and, almost unintentionally, as the years go by, the aging of the residents who have remained leads to general discouragement. On the positive side, the movement of return or resistance in the towns by young people, who prefer their roots to life in big cities, is gaining more and more strength in Baza.
Celia Tello, a young woman from Bastetana, returned to the municipality a few years ago, where she is now a teacher of Plastic Arts at La Íbera, a creative school that she founded.. It now changes location, right in front of the Municipal Archaeological Museum, where in principle the Lady would be housed, if approved.. He says that his grandfather, curiously, was part of those who were there the day the Iberian sculpture was found and that “he was surprised by the polychrome color that disappeared as soon as he unearthed it.”.
Art is a leitmotiv in his family. His brother, Agustín Tello, is also a businessman and artist in the town.. The City Council gave both of them the Baza Joven award for entrepreneurship in the town. The first impulse, before any award, comes from private initiative, which is in the doldrums in the town. Celia points out how before, when she was a child, the streets that are now full of closed shutters were a trail of local businesses and life in the town. “There was everything,” he says.. The resistance that he forms together with other young people who dedicate themselves from plastic art to coffered ceilings is still weak in the face of what has been lost..
The starting point for Antonio Francisco Martínez, spokesperson for the Association of Friends of the Guadix-Baza Railway, would be the recovery of the train.. The closure of the railway line in the 80s by the Government of Felipe González began a drift that ended up separating the region from the province. Then economic reasons were given, which finally led to more serious ones, such as the depopulation and depression of the entire economy of what already calls itself “Empty Granada.”. It is impossible to understand the isolation and the tired air of their political complaints without taking into account that for 40 years not a single carriage has passed through there and that deaf ears for years upon their return have been the norm..
Martínez, who dedicates his life almost entirely to this cause, also insists, however, on the return of the Lady. “It would be a second chance that, together with the train, would change everything. I would focus on the fact that heritage can be the alternative to this area. Tourism, the businesses that would be created would insist on improving the historic center. We know what the technical reports say, it's a matter of money,” he insists.. This is commented on and agreed by other municipal technicians who remember the case of the Lady of Elche, who returned to where she was found in 2006, although in a very different economic context, in the midst of a bubble..
He himself says that he tried to “take” the Lady when he went to visit her the last time.. He does not miss opportunities, no matter which politician comes to the province, to approach the event in question to ask for both things, the train and the sculpture, which for him go hand in hand. The hope, in any case, of the Bastetans is unanimous, as patient as it is full of demands, they do not stop repeating. “Once a politician told me that, if she came, the Lady would come by train,” Martínez summarizes.