LA CULTURA Prayers answered

THE prestigious Latin Grammy awards are coming to Spain this November in a three-year deal - the first time they are being held outside the United States. The announcement was made in Sevilla but the specific dates and the host city were not named, though Sevilla appears to be the front-runner. The Latin Grammys were first held in Los Angeles in 2000. Last year, they took place in Las Vegas, where Spanish artist Rosalíia won best album for ‘Motomami’.

Andalucia president, Juan Manuel Morena Bonilla, met with the Latin Recording Academy CEO, Manuel Abud. Both parties described the deal as 'historic' and 'unprecedented'.

An archaeological marvel dating back seven centuries has been uncovered in Andalucia

AFTER two years of searching, archaeologists have finally had their prayers answered and uncovered a rare medieval synagogue in the basement of a disco.

The 14th century building in Utrera (Sevilla) has also been used as a hospital, restaurant and home for abandoned children down the years.

It is just one of a precious handful of medieval synagogues to have survived the aftermath of the expulsion of Spain’s Jews in 1492. In his 1604 history of Utrera, Rodrigo Caro, a local

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By Anthony Piovesan

priest, historian and poet, described an area of the city centre as it had been in earlier centuries, saying:

“In that place, there were only foreign and Jewish people who had their synagogue where the Hospital de la Misericordia now stands”.

Utrera mayor Jose Maria Villalobos said it was ‘now scientifically certain that we’re standing in a medieval synagogue right now’. “Until now there were only four such buildings in all of Spain - two in Toledo, one in Segovia and one in Cordoba,” he said.

“This is an exceptional building that’s been part of Utrera and part of its inhabitants’ lives for 700 years.

“This building was born in the 1300s and has made it all the way to the 21st century.”

Visits

One of the key reasons for its survival was that the site was always in use for one purpose or another. The building could be opened for public visits in parallel with archaeologists continuing to excavate the site.