THE PARCHMENT OF THE "TORRE TURPIANA": THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT AND ITS EARLY INTERPRETERS ^

The present contribution deals with the famous parchment found in 1588 in the old minaret of the former Friday Mosque of Granada, with texts in Arabic, Spanish, and Latin. Together with the Lead Books, discovered in various caves in the outskirts of Granada in the years 1595-1600, the parchment stood at the beginning of an important national cult. After being transferred to the Vatican at the beginning of the seventeenth century and following their anathematization in 1682 the parchment and the Lead Books were kept in Rome until the year 2000 when they were retumed to the Archbishopry of Granada. The article presents an analysis of the layout and script of the parchment (2) followed by a survey of translations and transcripts by early (Christian and Muslim) eyewitnesses (3.1). The data of these early eyewitnesses are critically compared with the main elements of the parchment (3.2) Then follows a discussion of the palaeographic comments made by a few (Christian and Muslim) eyewitnesses (4). In the final conclusions, the authors argue that the document under discussion is indeed the original parchment as found in 1588 notwithstanding the incomprehensibility of its Arabic texts and the many inconsistencies and corruptions of its Spanish and Latin texts (5.1). According to the authors, there is no evidence for the interpretation of the parchment as a pro to-Islamic document, as we are dealing here with a Roman Catholic message heralding the destruction of Islam. At the same time, however, the document also contained a symbolic message, viz. in stipulating that the first-century Granadan Christians, including the well-known figure of Cecilius, wrote Arabic and Spanish, just as many Moriscos did. In other words: even though Islam had to be extirpated, Arabic as a language could harmoniously accompany a genuine Christian life. (c) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Licencia Creative Commons 3.0 España (by-nc) http://al-qantara.revistas.csic.es AQ, XXIV, 2003 THE PARCHMENT OF THE "TORRE TURPIANA" 353


Introduction
In March 1588 a parchment and several relics, including bones purporting to be of the protomartyr St. Stephen, and a piece of a veil which allegedly had belonged to St. Mary, were discovered in the former minaret of the Friday Mosque in Granada. Judging from the writings of those who attempted to translate the document in the late 16th and early 17* centuries, the parchment contained texts in Arabic, Spanish, and Latin. Together with the Lead Books, discovered in various caves in the outskirts of Granada in the years 1595-1600, which contained Arabic texts in a mysterious Arabic script, the parchment stood at the beginning of an important national cult. The parchment, the veil and the bones became important relics of the Granadan cathedral, which had hitherto sadly lacked such assets. After being transferred to the Vatican at the beginning of the seventeenth century and their anathematization in 1682 they were kept in Rome until the year 2000 when they were returned, together with a collection of relevant documents on CD-Rom, to the Archbishopry of Granada. ^ 328 P. s. VAN KONINGSVELD -G. A. WIEGERS AQ, XXIV, 2003 To the best of our knowledge, subsequent to their being anathematized no researcher ever obtained any direct access to these materials, including the parchment, during the centuries of their preservation in Rome. The extensive literature on the subject had to rely without exception on translations and copies, only. After a long series of attempts to get access to these materials in the Vatican, we were finally able, with the permission of the Abbott of the Sacromonte Abbey, to study the parchment now preserved in its archive, during the summer of 2002. After having drawn the attention of the authorities of the Sacromonte to the small and hardly legible photograph of the parchment published in the book Jesucristo y el Emperador Cristiano, Córdoba 2000, p. 624, we also obtained the permission to have new photographs made on the spot with the aim of having them published in a short forthcoming article in Al-Qantara. The negatives of these photographs, made by Mr. Javier Algarra from Granada, are presently preserved in the Archivo del Sacromonte.

Layout and Script
Our study of the parchment itself, which measures 63,5 by 49 cms, was limited to its recto side. As the parchment was framed and protected by glass, we were unable to have a look at its verso side. However, according to the librarian, don Vicente Redondo, to whom we express our gratitude here for his help, nothing is written on the verso side. Here follow some general observations on layout and script (c£ Plates I-V).
The eye of the curious observer of the document is first of all drawn to what presents itself as a number of squares and rectangular spaces with legends in Latin and Arabic script, alternately in brown and red ink. These squares and rectangular spaces are encompassed by marginal notes, most of them written in Arabic, one written in (a different) Latin script.
In each of the numerous squares (48:29=1392 in all), there usually figures one letter, only. In the much less numerous rectangular spaces (15:10=150 in all), however, one usually observes one, or even more than one, word. Both at their right-and left-hand sides, the squares and rectangular spaces under discussion are enclosed by vertical double-line spaces. This suggests a kind of "unity" between both parts. sentences 3 and 4) with letter forms vaguely reminiscent of the Hebrew or Syriac script, and finally (e.g. in the second note, in red ink) letter forms seems to be similar to the Greek script. These pseudo-Arabic features are to be observed in all "Arabic" passages of the parchment. (We already observed similarly fantastic letter forms in the Latin script of the central squares; they also figure in the Latin script of the final note; see below). The combination of these three features in the Arabic script of the document shows that we are dealing with a conscious process of mystification. In view of the nature of some of the fancy forms introduced into the script, the mystification observed may be interpreted as an attempt to create an "authentically ancient" atmosphere. In the case of the "Arabic" passages, this conscious process of mystification resulted, as a rule, in a totally incomprehensible and meaningless text, notwithstanding the fact that a few words might be "deciphered", with the help of great ingenuity.
The final marginal note, figuring at the left comer below, was written in a Latin script form that differs clearly from that of the other parts of the document (cf. Plate V). This final note in Latin, containing a passage starting with the words Relacio Patricii sacerdotis, is the only text that can be deciphered without any major difficulty. We are dealing with a Latin script that was identified by various contemporary sources as "French script" (letra francesa). ^

Survey of the Early Eyewitnesses
To establish who were the first to study the document, we used Adan Centurión, Marqués de Estepa's Información (1632) as an early source, together with publications by D. Cabanelas Rodriguez, ^ C. Alonso, ^ and G. Morocho Gayo. ^ Alonso, who closely follows the events described by Estepa, ^ tells us that shortly after the parchment was discovered on 18 March 1588, a committee of canons was installed by the then bishop of Granada, Juan Méndez de Salvatierra. The translators were bound by secrecy under the pain of excommunication.
The first who was approached was the licenciado José Fajardo, who had been professor of Arabic at the University of Salamanca. He excused himself, however, stating that he did not know Arabic well enough. Under the responsibility of the licenciado Francisco López Tamarid, "familiar y intérprete del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición deste reino de Granada" and racionero oí the cathedral of Granada, Miguel de Luna and then Alonso del Castillo were asked to examine the document. Luna demanded that he were allowed to study the parchment at home, which he did between 26 and 30 March 1588, According to Cabanelas Rodriguez, again following Estepa, Fajardo and Francisco López Tamarid assisted him. Subsequently, and allegedly independently from Miguel de Luna, Alonso del Castillo studied the parchment between 2 and 5 April of the same year. There is agreement among the students of the Sacromonte affair that Miguel de Luna's translation of 1588 is found in Biblioteca Nacional Madrid, Ms 5785, f. 156r-156v, and Castillo's translation of 1588 on f. 156v-157r of the same manuscript. ^ We assume that these identifications are correct, but it should be noted that both translations are not expressis verbis attributed to these translators.
After having made these initial translations, Castillo and Luna made others, such as for example the version of Castillo published by Hagerty, which is based on manuscript C 28 of the Sacromonte Ar- chive. 10 From the perspective of the Arabic parts, the most important of these is a manuscript in the handwriting of Alonso del Castillo preserved in the Archivo del Sacromonte (B 2), which, apart from Spanish translations of all the Arabic texts of the document, also contains a transcript of the Arabic texts of the rectangular spaces together with a translation of them and brief comments. (No reason is given why only these parts of the Arabic legends of the document are provided in their original script and language.) On April 2, a transcription of the Latin text {Relacio Patricii) was sent to the Vatican. ^^ Presumably the version signed by Tamarid himself had come into existence by then as well. ^^ The process came to a standstill because of the sudden death of Salvatierra, and the new archbishop, Pedro Vaca de Castro y Quiñones, revived it. In 1592 a copy was sent to the court in Madrid for inspection. The copy in question, which is now preserved in the Escorial library, was signed and certified by Tamarid. ^^ Benito Arias Montano was only prepared to give his expert opinion when he had been able to scrutinize the document itself after it had been brought to him in Seville by canon Pedro de Lorca in 1593. Montano was probably assisted and seconded by his student Pedro de Valencia, whose own opinion, expressed in writing in 1607, will be discussed below as well. 14 Another early eyewitness and interpreter of the document is the Morisco author, al-Hajari, who provides rather extensive quotations from it in the first chapter of his Kitab Nasir al-Dïn, ^^ Al-Hajarî stud- ied the parchment in 1599, shortly before he escaped from Spain to Morocco. ^^ It is interesting to compare some of his interpretations to the views of the Christian scholars, as he was convinced that the parchment was an ancient document, dating from the beginning of the Christian Era, interpreting it, however, from an Islamic theological perspective, viz. as an early and authentic Christian testimony to the truth of the message of Islam.

The Cross at the Top
According to Tamarid, whose translation (including a reproduction of the iconographical details) we will take as a point of departure because of its completeness (it is the only one which offers a complete translation of the Gospel text), its date (presumably about 1588) and its author (see above), there was a large cross at the top, formed by five small crosses. This information is more or less confirmed by the parchment (cf Plates I and III). The crosses are indeed to be found in the same configuration as described by Tamarid. Moreover, at the upper right hand side they appear also at the beginning of the Arabic text. The crosses are also reproduced by the marquis of Estepa. ^^ The crosses were no doubt meant to give the document an authentic Christian outlook. Al-Hajarî does not mention the crosses at all. This is probably due to his interpretation of the parchment as a proto-Islamic document.  al-wujüd). ^^ It is indeed possible to read in the first words something likQjafr al-munàjll, but the remainder of the "Arabic" text is, to the best of our understanding, illegible and devoid of any meaning. The interpretation of the Christian scholars only derives its plausibility fi-om the contents attributed to the prophecy in Spanish (no. 5 below) and to the Latin text at the end (no. 8), not from an objective reading, on its own merit, of the text. The Arabic phrasing is fantastic.

The Discovery of the prophecy by Cecilius (in Arabic)
According to the eyewitnesses, the preceding note was followed by story of the discovery of a prophecy by Cecilius, bishop of Granada, written in Arabic as well (c£ Plate III). In it, this "bishop of Granada" related how he had been stricken with blindness as a result of an eye-disease when he was on the way from Jerusalem to Athens. Upon reaching Athens he was cured in a miraculous way: his eyes were touched by the veil with which Mary had dried Jesus' tears. After regaining his sight, he discovered the wonderñil prophecy in a Hebrew script, translated into Greek by Dionysius the Areopagite (a disciple of Paul's, and the first bishop of Athens, see Acts 17: 34). Consequently, Cecilius told that this prophecy was translated by him from Greek into the spoken language, Romance, and then explained in the language in use among the Christians of Spain.
The sources for this translation are again the early translations by Miguel de Luna, Alonso del Castillo and Tamarid. Also al-Hajarî agrees with this interpretation in general terms. ^^ However, according to him, and contrary to the interpretation of the Christian scholars, this '^ Nàsir al-dín, f. 8v. ^^ Nàsir al-dîn, f. 9r.
(c) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Licencia Creative Commons 3.0 España (by-nc) http://al-qantara.revistas.csic.es whole passage did not begin with a reference to the Holy Trinity, but with the words: "In the name of the venerable and multablba essence" (Bismi l-dhat al-karîma al-multabiba, and not: al-muthallatha). With the help of al-Jawharï's dictionary al-Hajarï understood that the key-word al-multabiba referred to "the plain and pure essence which was neither composite nor mixed", in accordance, of course, with the authentic Islamic doctrine of the divine essence.
From our side, we should like to remark that not a single "word" of the "Arabic" lines concerned warrants the interpretations of the early eyewitnesses, including al-Hajarï, even though it is indeed possible to read in the third word of the first line something like al-multabîba. However, the remainder of the "Arabic" text is, to the best of our understanding, completely illegible and devoid of any meaning. Also these interpretations, it seems to us, only derive a certain "plausibility" fi"om the contents attributed to the prophecy in Spanish (no. 5 below) and to the Latin text at the end (no. 8), and, again, not from any objective reading, on its own merit, of the text. The Arabic phrasing is, again, fantastic.

Marginal Notes in Arabic
Before discussing the prophecy itself, we have to pay attention to the already-discussed accompanying notes in Arabic script in the left margin (in brown and red ink, cf Plate II). According to al-Hajarî, "In the margin was written in Arabic in letters without diacritical points: 'O student of the riddle, you must combine! If you do not combine, you shall not fiiUy grasp the mystery!'" (in transcription: y à tâlib al'laghz, aqrin wa-in lam taqrin lam tuhit bi-fahm aUjafr!). In fact, there are 7 small sentences in brown ink ending with a letter that could be interpreted as aha' (often used as an abbreviation of intahd, meaning "end [of note]". These are followed by 4 small sentences in red ink, ending with a word that could be read asfi. Although the first words of the first note could be read as Yà tálib, one has to use a great deal of imagination to follow al-Hajari in the remainder of his transcription. In fact, the words of these notes seem to be devoid of any real meaning (cf our earlier remarks about the script of these notes).
On his turn, López Tamarid tells us the following about these notes: "En el margen del pergamino original está unas letras en (c) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Licencia Creative Commons 3.0 España (by-nc) http://al-qantara.revistas.csic.es arábigo que dice así: 'con coraçonpuro leerás estas cosas sublimes y sabrás la sciencia soberana y si no supieres las dos lenguas, no alcanças laprophecia hebrea'". This reading is followed by Pedro de Valencia (who had had access to Arias Montano's assessment, as we will see below), who reads the marginal note as follows: *'Con limpio corazón leerás estas cosas soberanas y alcanzarás la ciencia divina. Y si no supieres las dos lenguas, no alcanzarás la Profecía Hebrea " ?^ This remarkable coincidence can certainly not be explained, in our view, by assuming that both scholars reached the same translation of an illegible and meaningless text while working independently from each other! The translation by Castillo published by Hagerty reads the marginal note as: ''Tú que quieres saber la significación de estas cifras conviene que estés instruido en las letras y ciencia de la sagrada teología, y asimismo para entender lo que está escrito abajo". This is certainly somewhat closer to al-Hajarï's interpretation!

The Prophecy in Spanish
Let us now turn to the Spanish text of the prophecy itself (cf Plates III and IV) Here, again, we have to distinguish between the data provided by al-Hajarl on the one hand and the Christian scholars on the other hand.
This text, as transcribed by López Tamarid, by Alonso del Castillo (i.e. the version included in the Sarcromonte Archive, B 2), and by Morocho Gayo, ^^ was said to have stated that after six centuries fririons ministers would cast Stygian shadows, which would darken the light of the sun, while the Temple of the Lord would suffer grievous persecutions. Añ^x fifteen centuries a dragon would rise in the North, which would divide the faith into sects (apparently a reference to the Reformation). Then three enemies would appear in the northern parts, who would fill the earth with vice, threatening mankind in general and the priesthood (Sp. sacerdocio) in particular. They would try to extinguish the light, which would recede and seek shelter. These miraculous events would herald the coming of the Antichrist, who was In order to judge the transcriptions and interpretations of the Christian scholars, it should be kept in mind that the squares were read from the outset with a particular "key", as can be gauged from some explicit remarks made by some of them. According to López Madera and Ignacio de las Casas, one started with the dark letters, following the squares until the end, and then started again at the beginning (left upper side) reading the red letters. 22 The Christian interpreters indeed started at the left upper part, with the dark letters. The sequence of the dark letters was followed until the end was reached. Then the red letters were "read". Thus, the first seven words of the square (dark color) were read as '7a edad de la luz ya començada '\ The final words (red color) are read by Tamarid as ''cuando le plazera ".
If we collate the transcriptions with the squares themselves, however, we reach the following conclusions. Even if quite a number of these interpretations can be followed by the modem detached observer, we cannot but conclude that in many cases these at best are conjectures, due to the incredible variety and vagueness of the letter forms. In some cases, however, the interpreters ignored a clear letter in order to obtain some kind of result. This holds also true for the empty cases, the majority of which appears in the "red" sequence. Another conclusion that can be drawn from a comparison of the transcriptions/interpretations with the parchment is that all the extant transcriptions are incomplete. The last words about the coming of the Judge of Truth match line 23, which leaves the last six lines untranslated. One can only speculate why this is so. Difficulties of interpretation may play a role here. For upon a closer look it looks like that the majority of the red letters in the last six lines (lines 24-29) are a kind of repetition of the brown ones next to them, albeit with some variations and exceptions.
For the sake of fiirther comparison, we here present the result of our own efforts to decipher the texts of the squares, applying the same "key" as the early Christian scholars, i.e. we shall start with the brown letters and continue with the red ones. •indicates a blotted square, of which the letter or symbol is unreadable, whileD? indicates a square that has remained empty, as far as can be judged without the use of infrared light and on the basis of the photographs at our disposal.): Dark letters:  The prophecy in the Spanish language was according to Tamarid and other early interpreters followed by a commentary, said to have been written again by Cecilius in Arabic, explaining the hidden meaning of the aforesaid prophecy, (cf. Plate IV).
The texts of this "commentary", in fact consisting of one or more Arabic words written alternately in brown and red ink in each of the 150 rectangular spaces, has been copied, translated and commented upon by Alonso del Castillo in the unpublished manuscript B 2 preserved in the Archivo del Sacromonte. In his study, Castillo first follows up the 75 spaces with legends in brown ink, and then continues with the second part of the spaces, in red ink. Castillo also provides grammatical and philological comments to each of the 150 passages. Judging from the work of Castillo, we are dealing here with a text in Andalusian dialect, with a vocabulary that also included some Spanish words (like the word danû, see below^. The authorship of the prophecy is ascribed to St. John the Apostle, "el mas preferido de los apostolos"(8-10). Castillo's transcription, translation and commentary deserve a separate study that falls outside the scope of the present article. We will confine ourselves here to a comparison of a longer passage quoted by al-Hajarfs in his already-quoted book Kitâb Nàsir al-Dîn.
Al-Hajarî provides what he sees as a poetical quotation of six lines from the Arabic text with a few introductory words:
Al-Hajarï then continues as follows: 1 translated the meaning of these verses. The meaning they [viz. the other translators, VK-W] had understood was that the king was in fact the Prophet -^may God bless him and grant him peace!-, because they said that he was bom in the year 621 after the birth of Jesus -^peace be upon him! I am convinced, however, that he was bom before that -^may God bless him and grant him peace!-, in the fifth century, whereas his religion became known during the sixth If we compare al-Hajarî's quotation to Castillo's transcription and translation as preserved in MS Sacromonte B 2, we obtain the following results: The passage concerned is found in the second sequence of Castillo's transcript, where he is copying the words of the parchment ^^ The words between brachets are clearly an interpolation or gloss added by al-Hajarî later. In our translation we erroneously considered these words to be part of the quotation from the parchment.
^^ Al-Hajarî wants to say that Muhammad was bom during the century prior to the year 600, while Islam became spread during the century following it. Like in the other texts of the parchment, the script of the passages under discussion contains many hybrid and fantastic elements to underline their ancient origin. These fancy elements result in a high degree of ambiguity of the passages that allow for various interpretations. In some cases, where the script seems to be somewhat "clearer", some transcriptions are evidently wrong, while in these cases Castillo and al-Hajari appear to have committed the same "mistake". An example of this is passage No. 32, where the MS is clearly lacking the sign for rá' (in "tamámi '1-qadri", read both by Castillo and al-Hajan), the more plausible reading being: "tamámi '1-qaddi". The high degree of coincidence between both the transcripts of Castillo and al-Hajarî leads us to the conclusion that the latter in fact depended on the work of the former which he adopted while adding some minor "corrections".
Al-Hajarï may also have known Castillo's translation. He explicitly refers to the translation of "the pious shaykh al-Jabbis": Discussing the meaning of the wordyání (in the first verse, cf. passage No. 28 of Castillo's transcription), al-Hajarî remarks: "The pious Shaykh al-Jabbis and my own translation said: this is an active adjective of the YQvhjanâ (...)" This remark seems to be in agreement with Castillo's translation: "(27) De la población de los orientales (28) saldrá un furioso rey (29) con milicia y arma".
^^ The MS has no sign for rá', while the presumed qáfhas two dots (!). "^"^ Castillo translates: «con daño que se adelantara», apparently identifying the Arabic dam as a Spanish word. As we saw earlier, Castillo's transcription (Nos. 37-44) differs in various points from that of al-Hajarî. The key-word din (in No. 42) allowing al-Hajarî to attribute, also in this case, an Islamic tendency to the document, does not figure in Castillo's text. In stead, he reads: danû, a word he identifies in his translation with the Spanish word daño, figuring as follows in his translation: "(37) Y su reino (38) sera tan pujante (39) por las hedades (40) y por todo su proceso (41) hasta el occidente (42) con daño que se adelantara (43) en el obdormiento de su deseo (44) por mandado de los ynconuenientes". There seems to be no allusion to Islam here, at all.

Concluding Remarks by Cecilius in Arabic
Then are said to follow some concluding remarks, again by Cecilius, in Arabic, including the beginning of the Gospel of John (mainly the verses 1-14, though the Spanish translation by Tamarid shows deviations from the Vulgate). "^^ Although a scholar such as Pedro de Valencia offers a discussion of this section, ^^ the reading is not confirmed by the parchment (c£ Plate IV). In this section we also find the "signature" of Cecilius, which Arias Montano discusses, as we will see below. This signature is usually transcribed as "Cecilius Obispus Granatensis". The only element one can read, however, is the name of "Sisiliyùh". The other two words are not clear. There are a few "diacritical" dots here, but in a fantastic manner, on the word that was interpreted as "obispo" or "episcopus".

Final report by Patricius in Latin
Finally, we find the report by Patricius, servant of Cecilius written in Latin (c£ Plate V). It describes certain things hidden by him viz. a prophecy and relics, as well as the reason why these were hidden, viz. in order to avoid discovery by the Moors and because Cecilius felt that his martyrdom was imminent. This text also contains a descriptive list of the relics accompanying the parchment, which indeed were found when it was discovered. Following the transcription of Castillo (which is in need of a number of corrections), its text reads as follows:

Palaeographic Comments by Eyewitnesses
Al-Hajarfs remarks on the script of the document are uncritical. It was his belief in what he thought to be the content of the document that also determined his conviction that this was the genuine form of the Arabic script used in the East in those ancient times: "In the Arabic script of that time, as found in the parchment, the letter qàf had two dots, which proves that the Easterners in this respect are following the old practice [of writing], contrary to the Westerners, because they make the qqf with one dot only." ^^ As a rule, the "Arabic" passages of the parchment are devoid of diacritical dots (and also of vowels). But there are some rare exceptions. One of these is a word in the first line of the second Arabic note, with a letter resembling a qqf, provided with 2 dots. This is a word al-Hajarï may have had in mind when writing his above-quoted remark about the qqf The strange and fantastic letter forms to be found in many places of the document may have strengthened his conviction about the ancient date and Eastern provenance of the parchment, even though he does not refer to these characteristics explicitly. However, a careM scrutiny of the Arabic letter forms of the document occasionally reveals letter forms characteristic of the mag/^nèf handwriting, for instance in the dâl, in various emphatic consonants, etcetera.
The distinguished scholar Benito Arias Montano judged the document as a falsification as well. He carefiiUy studied the parchment itself in 1593 52 when it had been brought to him personally by the Granadan scholar Lorca: "y ahora viendo el mismo pergamino original, que recibí de mano del señor doctor Lorca, y juntamente las prefaciones, copias y traducciones del licenciado Luna, hechas con diligencia y puntualidad'' [our italics, VK and W]. He also had at his disposal an unpublished study about the parchment by Lorca himself Arias Montano focuses in his critical assessment on external evidence, but tells us very little about the contents. His point of departure is the maxim of no admitir las cosas inciertas por ciertas, viz. to be very carefiil with admitting as religious doctrine other writings next According to Arias Montano, the parchment certainly does not date back to the time of Cecilius. It is "viejo, empero no antiguo; viejo digo usado y maltratado más que guardado y conservado, como suelen hacer los que descubren cosas nuevas que nunca fueron antiguas". The script is modem, and written in such a way that it looks ancient, "empero no que imite a las que usaba quatrocientos años ha entre buenos y mines escribientes, de que tenemos asaz muestras en nuestros libros escritos e instmmentos. La tinta negra y roja no es antigua, sino mala tinta y sin cuerpo para que parezca vieja. Escrito todo con pluma y no con caña, cosa que ha menos de cuatrocientos años que se introdujo entre los latinos y griegos y que aún estos no la han dejado -digo los griegos-del todo; los árabes mucho menos". About the signature at the very end he tells us: "Verdad es que la que pone por firma es de otra pluma, de otra letra y de otra forma de tinta, y el tercer vocablo de esta firma adrede puesto, no solo sin xuclas, sino sin notas que distingan las letras, por hacer la lectura dudosa y maravillosa".
Without discussing the details of the contents of the parchment he tells us the following about its historical background: "Conforme a esto, estuvo aquí un maestro de latin Mal Lara, que enloquecía los hombres hallando invenciones de enterrar escritos que prometían tesoros escondidos. Y otro, pintor, que hinchió la tierra y los moldes de monstmos y apariencias y maravillas falsas, sin ningún provecho suyo, aunque lo daba a los impresores. El lenguaje o estilo, traducido, como se pretende, de hebraico en griego, de griego en arábigo y en español, con título de profecía de san Juan apóstol, evangelista y profeta, que lo fiíe todo, no concierta en frases ni en las cosas ni en los vocablos de ellas con el decir de alguno de cuantos tenemos por verdaderos profetas, ni con el Apocalipsis, ni menos con el de las Epístolas y Evangelio de San Juan". The prophecy rather fits in the class of forgeries of which Arias mentions among others the so-called Testament of Christ. But in addition to forgeries with a more or less "public" and clear message, there are esoteric and enigmatic ones (i.e. disimulado estilo), which are written in a way which is called in Spanish cifra. It resembles "a las recetas de los alquimistas y a [las] ^^ Morocho Gayo, «Estudio introductorio», 383.
In a letter of 1596 Montano returns to the problems involved in the parchment in the following terms, but bases himself on a transcript that he had apparently in his possession. ^^ Because of the lack of diacritics, he tells us, the entire reading is difficult: "el pergamino que acá tengo sacado del que se dize hauer sido hallado en las ruinas de la Torre, si es puntualmente sacado o copiado del original, no lo leerán quatro que entiendan la lengua sin variar en muy muchos lugares de grande manera, porque no solo carece de xuclas o haracas, que son las vocales (que esto no haze mucho negocio a quién está diestro en leer) sino lo que más importa: está falta de los puntos sustanciales de las letras consonantes, y por esto juzgo yo hará adivinar a los ingenios".

The ''Authenticity" of the Parchment
One could argue that the parchment as we have it here, in view of the incomprehensibility of its Arabic texts and the many inconsistencies and corruptions of its Spanish and Latin texts, is perhaps not the original as "found" in 1588, but a copy made by an ignorant scribe. We believe this proposition must be rejected. The first argument in favour of its "authenticity" is its provenance: We are not dealing here with a document discovered by surprise in some library or archive but with the parchment which for almost three and a half centuries was preserved in the Vatican among all the other materials, including the Lead Books, which had been transferred from Spain to Rome in the 17th century. The second argument is related to the hybrid and fantastic elements to be encountered both in the Latin and the Arabic script. These were obviously intended to lend credibility to the parchment as an ancient document. These features clearly indicate that the document was the product of a conscious act of mystification.This act of mystification included, we believe, the incomprehensibility and meaninglessness of the Arabic texts (with the exception, to some ex-(c) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Licencia Creative Commons 3.0 España (by-nc) http://al-qantara.revistas.csic.es tent, of the Arabic prophecy written within the rectangular spaces). Had our parchment simply been the copy of originally meaningful Arabic texts, then even an ignorant scribe would at least have left us some understandable passages. This, however, is not the case. In addition, the ease with which the Arabic "words" were written down suggests an experienced and swiflty writing hand. The fact that we are convinced to be dealing here with the original parchment of 1588 does, however, not exclude the possibility that the Spanish text of the prophecy it contains is in fact a copy of an already existing text which may have circulated earlier. This remains to be verified by fiiture research. At any rate, we ñiUy agree with Arias Montano's view that the paleographical evidence indicates that our document is not ancient: We are dealing with a (contemporaneous, 16th-century) falsification.

The Religious and Political Message of the Parchment
The religious and political message of the parchment can, of course, only be understood from its legible parts, viz. the Spanish prophecy and the Latin note. Apart from an apocalyptic message, the Spanish prophecy announces, among others, that Reformation and Islam, two entities that often appear as major threats to Catholic Spain in the sixteenth century, would be defeated. The main message of the Latin note, on the other hand, seems to have been to lend credibility to the Spanish prophecy as an ancient text towards an Arabophone audience (of Muslim descent): the Moriscos. At least one of the Moriscos, al-Hajarî, was convinced of the ancient origin of the parchment, followed the available translations in broad lines, but did not accept its anti-Islamic message. Obviously, this would have undemiined his (Islamic) conviction that a genuinely ancient Christian document should perforce confirm the basic doctrines of Islam. ^^ But there is not the slightest evidence for his interpretation of the parchment as a proto-Islamic document. We are clearly dealing here with a Roman Catholic message heralding the de- actual behaviour of the principal actors involved has until recently remained largely in the dark. In the last few years a number of researches have appeared that shed new light on this process.
The first to draw the attention to this process was M. J. Hagerty. ^^ In 1996, L.P. Harvey and G.A. Wiegers found evidence in the hitherto unknown correspondence between Luis Tribaldos de Toledo and Adán Centurión, Marqués de Estepa. Tribaldos tells Estepa that the convert Muslim Arabist, Diego de Urrea, had told him that when he interpreted the tablets in a faithfiil way and finding bad Muhammedan doctrine, of which there was much to be found, the Archbishop had become angry, and told him that he had wrongly understood, and that it was impossible that they read like that, and that then he translated them in a way that seemed to be in agreement with good Catholic doctrine. ^'^ Moreover, Tribaldos accused Pedro de Castro of having paid one of the early translators, the Maronite Archbishop of Mount Lebanon, to change the interpretation of the texts. In his recent article, Benitez Sánchez Blanco quotes Ignacio de las Casas's statements about a process to the same effect. Although initially a defender of the authenticity of the Sacromonte tablets, this Jesuit of Morisco extraction later became one of their fiercest opponents. According to him, the translators of the plomos always worked in the presence of the Archbishop, Pedro de Castro, or of persons appointed by him. When problems occurred, these persons opposed a proposed translation of a particular word or passage, thus preventing the translators fi^om saying the truth. Often being descendants of Arabs, the translators were according to Casas afraid of being accused of being bad believers and did not dare to speak out. This they had acknowledged themselves to Casas. ^^ Whether these accusations were in fact grounded, remains uncertain. However, our study of the parchment indicates, to say it mildly, that al-Hajari's proto-Islamic interpretation of the Lead Books cannot ^^ Benitez Sánchez Blanco, R., «Traducción, crítica y denuncia de los libros plúmbeos por el P. Ignacio de las Casas», Al-Qantara, XXIII, 2 (2002), 403-436, 418. We have seen above that this situation was different in the case of the parchment.
(c) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas Licencia Creative Commons 3.0 España (by-nc) http://al-qantara.revistas.csic.es be accepted at face-value. One should, however, also bear in mind that notwithstanding the reference in the Lead Tablets to the discoveries of the "Turpiana" tower (they were the only documents referring to the tower by this name! ^^), there is no firm proof, so far, that the whole affair was conceived of as one concerted action right from its inception. Perhaps the idea of forging the Lead Tablets only came about when the Parchment and the relics had other results than the forgers had hoped for. However this may be, so far it has become clear that the Parchment is a straightforward Roman Catholic document. A final judgment of the value of the accusations concerning the Lead Tablets, mentioned in the preceding paragraph, can only be given on the basis of a carefiil study of their originals, now available in Granada.

ABSTRACT
The present contribution deals with the famous parchment found in 1588 in the old minaret of the former Friday Mosque of Granada, with texts in Arabic, Spanish, and Latin. Together with the Lead Books, discovered in various caves in the outskirts of Granada in the years 1595-1600, the parchment stood at the beginning of an important national cult. After being transferred to the Vatican at the beginning of the seventeenth century and following their anathematization in 1682 the parchment and the Lead Books were kept in Rome until the year 2000 when they were retumed to the Archbishopry of Granada. The article presents an analysis of the layout and script of the parchment (2) followed by a survey of translations and transcripts by early (Christian and Muslim) eyewitnesses (3.1). The data of these early eyewitnesses are critically compared with the main elements of the parchment (3.2) Then follows a discussion of the palaeographic comments made by a few (Christian and Muslim) eyewitnesses (4). In the final conclusions, the authors argue that the document under discussion is indeed the original parchment as found in 1588 notwithstanding the incomprehensibility of its Arabic texts and the many inconsistencies and corruptions of its Spanish and Latin texts (5.1). According to the authors, there is no evidence for the interpretation of the parchment as a pro to-Islamic document, as we are dealing here with a Roman Catholic message heralding the destruction of Islam. At the same time, however, the document also contained a symbolic message, viz. in stipulating that the first-century Granadan Christians, including the well-known figure of Cecilius, wrote Arabic and Spanish, just as many Moriscos did. In other words: even though Islam had to be extirpated, Arabic as a language could harmoniously accompany a genuine Christian life.