Alhama de Granada is a town in the province of Granada, approx. 50 km from the city of Granada. The name is derived from the thermal baths located there, which are called al-hammah in Arabic. History There is clear evidence that the Romans used the hot springs located near the town. In the 15th century, Arabs consolidated the town next to these hot springs and it was long believed that they built the thermal baths there, though Salvador Raya Retamero, a local historian, argues in his book Reseña histórica de los baños termales de la muy noble y leal ciudad de Alhama de Granada ("Brief history of the hot springs of the most noble and loyal city of Alhama de Granada") that the earliest baths are in fact Roman in origin. A short interview with the author explains the details. The bath house in the Almohade style of the 12th century that is preserved in the spa is a good example of Arab bath construction. In 1482, the fortress town was taken from the Moorish Sultanate and Kingdom of Granada by the Catholic Monarchs. Alhama's position between Málaga and Granada gave it strategic importance for the Moors but they also had a particular fondness for the town and its thermal waters and hot springs. The cry of sorrow, ¡Ay de mi Alhama!, uttered by Abu Al-Hacen (Abu l-Hasan Ali, Sultan of Granada) following the battle of 1482 when the town was lost to the Catholic conquerors, entered the Spanish language as an exclamation of regret. The story of the fall of Alhama and the subsequent slaughter of its inhabitants by the Christian knights is referred to in Tariq Ali's, The Islam Quintet in the first book Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree. The strategic influence of Alhama de Granada made its fall vital for the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada, which led to the beginning of a flourishing Christian age, because of the patronage of the Catholic Monarchs. Magnificent horse shoe arcs were built over the remains of Roman construction and are covered by a vaulted roof, pierced by star-shaped openings that let the daylight filter in. Under the vaulted roof of the baths the oldest warm spring of Alhama de Granada bubbles up. The newest one, which springs up a few metres from the other, was discovered in 1884, many centuries after a terrible earthquake whose epicentre could have