Village
Muel is a municipality in the Campo de Cariñena, in the province of Zaragoza, 29 km from the capital, in the valley of the Huerva river. It has 1,540 inhabitants (INE 2025). Its origins possibly date back to the 1st century AD, when a Roman dam was built on the Huerva to supply Caesaraugusta; Muel is mentioned in 1160 as Molle. After its conquest by Alfonso I the Battler, the Muslim population remained and took up pottery: in the 1495 hearth tax census it had 99 households, all Morisco, and in 1585 a traveller wrote that all its residents were potters. The expulsion ordered by Philip III, in the early 17th century, left the town depopulated. Goya painted the pendentives of the hermitage of the Virgen de la Fuente in fresco, and the village preserves on the Huerva one of the largest Roman dams of the Empire.
Curiosity
The Escuela Taller de Cerámica de Muel, run by the Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza, keeps alive a pottery tradition documented since 1048, when the first tiles made in Muel reached Zaragoza. In the 16th century the village's potteries covered an area of more than half a kilometre, and a 1580 chronicle relates that almost all the residents worked in this trade, producing pieces in blue and green tones with golden lustre. The activity gradually died out until the mid-20th century, when not a single kiln or working potter was left in Muel; today the industry is enjoying a period of revival, with six active workshops, and the escuela-taller organises exhibitions throughout the year.
Monument
Church of San Cristóbal in Muel, from 1706 in late Baroque style with Mudéjar elements, with a tall bell tower inherited from an earlier Mudéjar church.
Activity
Festivities of Muel on 3 February, for San Blas, with roscón cakes carried in procession; the main festivities, from 7 to 12 September, honour the Virgen de la Fuente with mass and a procession to her hermitage on the 8th.
Activity
Muel's winter festival is held in a village where Francisco de Goya frescoed the pendentives of the ermita de la Virgen de la Fuente in 1772, and which preserves a Roman dam over the Huerva built to supply Caesaraugusta. Its pottery, mostly Morisco, was interrupted for decades after the expulsion decree of Felipe III.
Monument
Hermitage in the municipal district of Muel, a village with a Morisco pottery tradition documented in the 1495 hearth tax census, interrupted for decades by the expulsion decree of Felipe III, and where the Escuela Taller de Cerámica today keeps up the production of blue and green tones with golden lustre.
Monument
Historic bridge over the River Huerva at Muel.
Curiosity
Pottery craft of Muel (Zaragoza), with a tradition documented since 1048, when the first tiles from the pottery workshops of Muel reached Zaragoza by order of Aben Tafa. In the 16th century the industry occupied an area of more than half a kilometre, and chronicles from 1580 relate that almost all the villagers lived from it. Production declined during the 19th and 20th centuries, to the point that by the mid-20th century not a single kiln or working potter remained in Muel. Today the tradition survives in six workshops producing Muel's popular pottery, some combining it with original creations, and in a ceramics school-workshop run by the Diputación de Zaragoza that holds exhibitions throughout the year.
Historical milestone
The Roman dam on the Huerva was built in the time of Augustus, in the early 1st century, to regulate the river's flow and secure the water supply of nearby Caesaraugusta, present-day Zaragoza. It is considered one of the best-preserved remains of Roman hydraulic engineering in Hispania. The wall, some 10.35 metres high and at least 60 long, closes off the narrowing of the riverbed next to the town centre of Muel, with a concrete core faced with limestone blocks and a base thickness of 11.5 metres. The reservoir came to cover some 80 hectares. It was abandoned around the 3rd century through natural silting, and its silted-up bed gave rise over time to the fertile Huerva floodplain; the river was not dammed again until 1731, with the Mezalocha dam.
Historical milestone
Francisco de Goya painted in fresco in 1772 the four pendentives of the dome of the chapel of the Virgen de la Fuente with the figures of the Fathers of the Church. It is counted among his first religious commissions after his return from Italy and is preserved in its original setting.
Historical milestone
The hearth census of 1495 recorded 99 hearths almost all of them Morisco and in 1585 it was noted that the whole town lived on clay. The decree of Felipe III emptied the population and forced a resettlement that interrupted for decades the production of tile and glazed pottery.