Send Gift Baskets to Marbella, Spain

Archeological excavations have revealed Paleolithic and Neolithic human habitations in the mountains around Marbella. Some historians believe that the Phoenicians established the first settlement on the current site of Marbella in the 7th century B.C. They were known to have based colonies on the coast of Málaga province. Despite some artifacts of Phoenician and later Carthaginian settlements being found in different parts of the municipality, including in the fields of Rio Real and Cerro Torrón, no remains of any significant settlement have been found.

Three Ionic capitals embedded into one section of the Murallas del Castillo (Moorish castle walls), reused materials from an earlier building, suggest that El Casco Antiguo (Old Town) once had a Roman population center. Other remains throughout the old town and on La Calle Escuelas (School Street) also testify to Roman occupation. A small Roman bridge over a stream can be located on the grounds of the Hotel Puente Romano, west of the City. There are ruins of other Roman settlements along the rivers Verde and Guadalmina: Villa Romana on the Rio Verde (Green River), Roman baths at Guadalmina, and Vega del Mar, a Roman villa and early Byzantine basilica built in the 3rd century and surrounded by a paleo-Christian graveyard, which Visigoths later used as a burial ground. These are all further indications that humans have been in the area for a long time. Salduba (Salt City) was the name of the City during Roman times.

During Islamic rule, after the Normans destroyed the coastline of Málaga in the 10th century, the Caliphate of Córdoba built several lighthouse towers to fortify it. As was customary in the Umayyad period, they made a citadel, the Alcazaba, and a wall to protect the town, which consisted of narrow streets and small buildings with large patios, the most notable of which is the citadel and mosque. Most of the village’s crops were figs and mulberry trees for silkworm cultivation; orchards surrounded it. According to some linguistic studies, it most likely developed from the Arabic name Marbal la, which may derive from a previous Iberian place name. The traveler Ibn Battuta described it as “a pretty little town in a fertile district.” During the time of the first kingdoms of Taifa, Marbil-la was contested by the Taifas of Algeciras and of Málaga, which eventually fell into the orbit of Málaga, which later became a part of the Nasrid Kingdom. Abu Yusuf Yaqub, ibn Abd Al-Haqq, launched a campaign against the Kingdom of Granada in 1283. With the Treaty of Marbella signing on 6 May 1286, all Marinid possessions in Al-Andalus had been restored to the Nasrid sultan, thus bringing peace between the two dynasties.