The province of Málaga’s strategic location, in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsular and in the western Mediterranean, and its proverbially fine climate have made this region a zone of transit and settlement of numerous civilisations. They all have left their imprint on this territory, which has been inhabited without interruption from the Palaeolithic period to the present day.

A historic and artistic heritage of the first magnitude has accumulated during those more than 20,000 years of human adventure. This heritage affects some more than others but leaves no one indifferent, least of all the visitor who arrives in Málaga for the first time and immediately realises that he is treading soil that has been occupied previously by the most distinguished cultures that history has produced. 

It is true that not all these civilisations have left behind important works in this part of Spain, either because the materials they used have not withstood the test of time or because, as is well known, a new civilisation with few exceptions is born out of the almost total and premeditated annihilation of the previous one. Even at that, the province of Málaga is a true cultural mosaic, many of whose pieces still attest to a past that encompasses all the Mediterranean civilisations.

The cave paintings of La Pileta (at Benaoján in the Ronda region), Doña Trinidad (at Ardales in the Guadalhorce valley region) and Nerja (Eastern Costa del Sol-La Axarquía), works whose ages have been estimated at between 15,000 and 20,000 years and that represent different plastic “languages”, are some of the many prehistoric remains that have been found in Málaga. The dolmens of Menga, Viera and El Romeral, in Antequera, are closer to us in time (2,500-1,800 B. C.) and are considered to be among the most important megalithic monuments in Europe.

the Phoenicians. In their expansion throughout the Mediterranean they found in this region places that were suitable for founding cities that to begin with were simply industrial enclaves producing mainly dried fish, a product that these people traded throughout the known world. This was in the eighth century B. C., the period when the cities of Malaka, which may have been the later Greek Mainake, and Suel, at the mouth of the River Fuengirola, were founded. The Toscanos archaeological site adjacent to the River Vélez and the Trayamar necropolis in the municipality of Algarrobo are two other Phoenician settlements of the utmost interest.

During the later Roman presence, important cities sprang up in the interior of the province due to the need to link the entire Andalusian region with the coast. Acinipo, in Ronda, and Singilia Barba, in Antequera are the best representatives of this epoch, although both cities were abandoned and founded anew on sites fairly close to the original ones.

At this point mention should be made of at least three Roman structures that clearly show the importance of the province of Málaga within the huge Andalusian region: The Teatro Romano (Roman Theatre) in Málaga, built in the first century A. D. on the side of Mount Gibralfaro and with a similar capacity to the Cartago Nova theatre; the Teatro Romano in Acinipo, near Ronda and also from the first century and with the same characteristics as that of Málaga but which still preserves a large part of the stage structure, and the Villa Romana (Roman villa) of Río Verde, in Marbella, on which appear mosaics of great artistic merit. The Roman archaeological site of El Faro de Torrox, from the first to fourth centuries A. D., is of equally great importance. A villa, a dried fish trading post, a necropolis, an oven and some bathhouses have been found here.