Neither the meaning nor the origin of its name have still been able to clarified, but everything seems to aim at its Iberian origin. The human presence in Gor is one of the oldest and most productive of the province, and its historical, monumental and landscaping patrimony is one of richest.
The town is located more than 1,200 meters of altitude and next to the old Roman road of the Herculea Route, called Augusta later, whose signs are still visible in the town. Las Juntas, Cenascuras and Las Viñas are the main anejos of Gor. These extend both sides of the wide and deep Gor river, providing with its alignments of houses and caves a unique stamp. It is worth to take the old highway to be able to contemplate it from any of its shores. About the Gor Mountain range, it has many natural places with names as suggestive as the Loma del Quemado, the Piedra del Escarmiento, the Cerro de los Frailes, the Prados del Rey, the Pozo de la Nieve or the Pino del Nieto, a gigantic centennial specimen.
In its architecture the church of the XVI century; the main square, with Castilian soportales; the Fuente de los Siete Caños, the old public laundries and the rests of the medieval castle, where the Dukes of Gor raised a magnificent palace, turned today into a bullring, stand out.
In fact, in this enclosure for bullfighting the villagers of Gor celebrate their main celebrations, in which before the bullfights there are encierros where the bulls run free by the streets and are lead until the square.
Its settlement goes back to the Neanderthal man, having found carved stones of the Musteriense period. Numerous testimonies from the Neolithic period as well as from the Eneolithic period are also conserved. Its Iberian past is located in the Cortijo Colorado, being place of uninterrupted settlements of Romans, Byzantines, Muslims and Castilians. During the Roman Empire, Gor was a population of certain importance located at the side of the Augusta Route. Of its Andalusí past, in which it got to be a remarkable Nasrid farmhouse, some rests of walls are conserved belonging to its old medieval castle. This one had great strategic value due to the fact that it was half way between Baza and Guadix, being a compulsory pass between both cities, whose communication controlled. Later, after the Christian conquest, which would be registered in the stone work of the choir of the Cathedral of Toledo, the town was donated by the Catholic Kings to Don Sancho of Castile in 1494. This one was ayo of the prince Don Juan, instituting after over its estate the title of the Ducado de Gor, before being sold in 1579 by Felipe II to 60 families who had repopulated it after the expulsion of the Moorish.
The gastronomy of the town includes among its typical dishes the popular zalamandroña, with cod, tomatoes and dry peppers, the andrajos with hare, migas with potatoes, the back in orza and the exquisite homemade sausages. As well as one of the most celebrated breads of the entire province and the wine of the region known with the name of “pitraque”.
© Patronato Provincial de Turismo de Granada I Diputación de Granada
