The city of Cordoba is one of the most important, complete and complex living archeological sites in the Western Mediterranean, with a timeline lasting from at least the Copper Age to the modern day. Two main periods can be highlighted as forming part of this long journey across time: the Roman era (2nd century BC-5th century AD) and the Islamic era (8th-13th centuries), periods when it played the role of a capital city and held a decisive place in politics and the power balances of the times.

During each of these periods, Cordoba also stood out because of its size, its monumental nature and its special urban features, which archeology has gradually revealed in recent decades, especially through large interventions,both urgent and preventive, as a result of the recent real estate boom and the university research which that boom led to. Thanks to all of this, we now know that Islamic Cordoba was a complex city undergoing constant change, that it reached its greatest splendor during the tenth century, when the croplands, outer boroughs and cemeteries associated with one another greedily stretched around the city until forming a true metropolis, governed by anciently rooted classical guidelines not deciphered until recently. The decisive factors involved therein held enormous importance in the expression of power, religion and pious works.

As the capital of Al-Andalus and the seat of emirs and caliphs, Cordoba also held great material and ideological influence throughout the territory, which always viewed it with respect, a desire for emulation or a thirst for rivalry.