Other names[edit]

Hisbaal is the oldest name for Seville. It appears to have originated during
the Phoenician colonisation of the Tartessian culture in south-western Iberia and it refers to the
god Baal.[5] According to Manuel Pellicer Catalán, the ancient name was Spal, and it meant "lowland"
in the Phoenician language (cognate to the Hebrew Shfela and the Arabic Asfal ‫)أسفل‬.[6]
[7]
 During Roman rule, the name was Latinised as Hispal and later as Hispalis. After
the Umayyad invasion, this name remained in use among the Mozarabs,[8] being adapted into Arabic
as Išbīliya (‫)إشبيلية‬: since the /p/ phoneme does not exist in Arabic, it was replaced by /b/; the Latin
place-name suffix -is was Arabized as -iya, and a /æ/ turned into ī /iː/ due to the phonetic
phenomenon called imāla.[9]
In the meantime, the city's official name had been changed to Ḥimṣ al-Andalus (‫)حمص األندلس‬, in
reference to the city of Homs in modern Syria, the jund of which Seville had been assigned to upon
the Umayyad conquest;[10][11][8][12] "Ḥimṣ al-Andalus" remained a customary and affectionate name for
the city during the whole period throughout the Muslim Arab world,[8][13][14] being referred to for example
in the encyclopedia of Yaqut al-Hamawi[15] or in Abu al-Baqa ar-Rundi's Ritha' al-Andalus.[16]
The city is sometimes referred to as the "Pearl of Andalusia".
The inhabitants of the city are known as sevillanos (feminine form: sevillanas) or hispalenses, after
the Roman name of the city.

Motto[edit]
NO8DO is the official motto of Seville, popularly believed to be a rebus signifying the Spanish No me
ha dejado, meaning "She [Seville] has not abandoned me". The phrase, pronounced
with synalepha as [no ma ðeˈxaðo] no-madeja-do, is written with an eight in the middle representing
the word madeja [maˈðexa] "skein [of wool]". Legend states that the title was given by King Alfonso
X, who was resident in the city's Alcázar and supported by the citizens when his son, later Sancho IV
of Castile, tried to usurp the throne from him.
The emblem is present on Seville's municipal flag, and features on city property such as manhole
covers, and Christopher Columbus's tomb in the cathedral.

History[edit]
Main articles: History of Seville and Timeline of Seville
Seville is approximately 2,200 years old. The passage of the various civilizations instrumental in its
growth has left the city with a distinct personality, and a large and well-preserved historical centre.

Early periods[edit]

Treasure of El Carambolo, belonging to the ancient Tartessian sanctuary located 3 kilometers west of Seville.

Section of Caños de Carmona

The mythological founder of the city is Hercules (Heracles), commonly identified with the Phoenician
god Melqart, who the myth says sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic, and founded
trading posts at the current sites of Cádiz and of Seville.[17] The original core of the city, in the
neighbourhood of the present-day street, Cuesta del Rosario, dates to the 8th century BC,[18] when
Seville was on an island in the Guadalquivir.[19] Archaeological excavations in 1999 found anthropic
remains under the north wall of the Real Alcázar dating to the 8th–7th century BC.[20] The town was
called Hisbaal by the Phoenicians and by the Tartessians, the indigenous pre-Roman Iberian people
of Tartessos, who controlled the Guadalquivir Valley at the time.
The city was known from Roman times as Hispal and later as Hispalis. Hispalis developed into one of
the great market and industrial centres of Hispania, while the nearby Roman city of Italica (present-
day Santiponce, birthplace of the Roman emperors Trajan and Hadrian)[21] remained a typically
Roman residential city. Large-scale Roman archaeological remains can be seen there and at the
nearby town of Carmona as well.
Existing Roman features in Seville itself include the remains exposed in situ in the underground
Antiquarium of the Metropol Parasol building, the remnants of an aqueduct, three pillars of
a temple in Mármoles Street, the columns of La Alameda de Hércules and the remains in the Patio
de Banderas square near the Seville Cathedral. The walls surrounding the city were originally built
during the rule of Julius Caesar, but their current course and design were the result of Moorish
reconstructions.[22]
Following Roman rule, there were successive conquests of the Roman province of Hispania
Baetica by the Germanic Vandals, Suebi and Visigoths during the 5th and 6th centuries.