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Jayena (Municipality, Andalusia, Spain)

Flag of Jayena - Image from the Símbolos de Granada website, 20 May 2014

Presentation of Jayena
Symbols of Jayena

See also:

Presentation of Jayena

The municipality of Jayena (1,213 inhabitants in 2008; 8,000 ha; municipal website) is located 50 km south of Granada.

Known as Chayyana in the Moorish period, Jayena was reconquered by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492; the village was subsequently transferred to Infante Pedro de Granada, the ancestor of the Marquesses of Campotéjar. Still a part of Alhama in the 18th century, Jayena was granted municipal independence in the late 18th-early 19th century. Damaged by an earthquake that suppressed 60% of the houses and claimed 15 lives in 1884, the village was completely rebuilt with funds offerred from all over Spain upon King Alfonso XII's call. Jayena is famous for its goat cheese, produced in the Rota estate and sold under the Cueva de la Magaha brand.

Ivan Sache, 23 July 2009

Symbols of Jayena

The flag and arms of Jayena, adopted on 31 March 2005 by the Municipal Council and submitted on 5 April 2005 to the Directorate General of the Local Administration, are prescribed by a Decree adopted on 27 April 2005 by the Directorate General of the Local Administration and published on 12 May 2005 in the official gazette of Andalusia, No. 91, p. 30 (text).
The symbols are described as follows:

Flag: Rectangular panel, in proportions 2:3, white with a blue diagonal stripe from the hoist upper angle to the fly lower angle, and with the municipal coat of arms in the center over the blue stripe.
Coat of arms: Azure five pomegranates or faceted gules and leaved [or] placed per saltire; a border argent five escutcheons argent fimbriated sable a bend sinister of the same. The shield surmounted with a Marquis' coronet [lengthy description of the coronet omitted].

The flag and arms of Jayena were designed by Andrís García Maldonado, an historian and chronicler from the neighbouring town of Alhama, who presented them to the public on 23 July 2004 in the Sociocultural Center of Jayena. García also designed proposals for the symbols of Alhama, Arenas del Rey, Santa Cruz del Comercio and Zafarraya.
In his Anales de Granada (1603-1644), Francisco Henríquez de Jorquera wrote that Jayena "has for arms those of its lords, the Marquesses of Campotéjar, a crowned shield with five pomegranates in the field". In February 1994, the Director of the Public School "Virgen del Rosario" quoted the Diccionario Heráldido y Nobiliario de los Reinos de España, which says that Prince Cidi Haya, converted to the Christian religion under the name of Pedro de Granada, the first lord of Campotéjar and Knight of the Order of St. James, bore "Azure five pomegranates or faceted gules and leaved [or] placed per saltire; a bordure argent five escutcheons argent fimbriated sable a bend sinister of the same. This arms can be seen on the house owned by the descendants of Pedro, locally known as the "Big House".
While reproduced in different places of the village, the coat of arms was not recognized by the Government of Andalusia, who required either to maintain the Marquis' coronet or to replace it with the Royal crown, as it was done on all coats of arms adopted after 1980. On the flag, blue represents solidarity and white represents purity.
[Alhama Comunicación, 23 July 2004].

The five pomegranates (granada) and the five escutcheons are shown on the first coat of arms of the Granada-Venegas family, following the victories in the Granada Plain at the time of the Catholic Monarchs.
[Símbolos de las Entidades Locales de Andalucía. Granada (PDF file)]

Ivan Sache, 1 July 2009