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The oldest door in Madrid, over 600 years old, has been found
The door, hidden away on a quiet side street in the centro de Madrid, turned out to be a living witness to the XV century
In the very heart of Madrid, in Plaza de la Villa, stands the Torre de los Lujanes, one of the city’s oldest buildings. On its side wall, from the narrow Calle del Codo, there is a small, discreet door. It is now known to be the oldest in the city.
Scientists from the University of Salamanca have studied the wood and, through carbon-14 analysis, discovered that the door was made before 1415. This means that it has survived kings, wars and Madrid’s transformation into a capital.
The study was commissioned by the Real Sociedad Económica Matritense, an organisation that has been working on the tower for a century and a half. The results were presented at an event commemorating the society’s 150th anniversary.
Carbon-14 is a method that makes it possible to determine the age of organic materials with considerable precision. In this case, it helped confirm that this is not simply a door, but an authentic piece of medieval Madrid.