In ancient times, Cordoba was a completely walled city divided into two large parts – the Almedina and the Ajerquía – enclosed in independent fortifications and separated by a dividing wall with narrow accesses.
Córdoba was known as the city of the seven gates, because of the number of gates that opened into the walled enclosure that protected the Hispano-Muslim medina. Of all of them, only the ‘Bad al-Chawz’ (Walnut Tree Gate), renamed the Almodóvar Gate, has not survived.
It is a 10th-century Caliphate construction built on Roman elements, renovated in the 14th century and restored in the 1960s. It consists of two towers linked by an upper bridge formed by a semicircular arch. It served as a passageway to the medina on its western side, and opposite the gate there was a Jewish cemetery known as the Fonsario de los Judíos.
From the Middle Ages until their expulsion in the 15th century, the Jewish population of Córdoba settled in a neighbourhood separated from the rest of the city where they established a Jewish quarter whose northern boundary was the Puerta de Almodóvar.
The entire walled area to the south of the gate, which extends to the Campo Santo de los Mártires along Calle Cairuán, is preserved, with a length of approximately 360 metres. It has its origins in Roman times, in particular in an extension of the city walls during the second half of the 1st century BC.
It was later transformed during the Caliphate of Córdoba, after the Christian conquest, and finally underwent a major restoration that added the moat and the lower walkway that surrounds it.
As a curiosity, it is worth mentioning that the name of the street is due to the existing twinning between Córdoba and the Tunisian city of Kairouan, which has a mosque that bears certain similarities to the one in Córdoba.
In front of the gate is the sculpture of Seneca, an illustrious Cordovan and key figure in Roman philosophy who was tutor to the Roman Emperor Nero.
English 
Spanish