Al-Andalus

From the Phoenicians onwards, wave after wave of invaders permeated the Iberian peninsula but the Moorish conquest of AD 711 was a watershed It was a cultural turning point that transformed the fields, the kitchen, and the diet, introduced a proto-Renaissance in intellectual thought, brought new forms of architecture and extraordinary craftsmanship, as well as eight centuries of sporadic conflict with the Christian kingdoms of the North That meant shifting borders, conversions, mixed marriages, uprisings, even new languages, hence ambivalent identities.