The Islamic Nasrid kingdom of Granada occupied the mountainous areas of the south-eastern of the Iberian Peninsula. The frontier between the Nasrid kingdom and the Christian kingdom of Castile from 1232 to 1492 was controlled by an extensive network of watchtowers built by Nasrid through the provinces of Granada, Malaga, Almeria and the eastern parts of Jaen, Cordoba and Cadiz. They allowed controlling this frontier stablishing visual communication between them and the Nasrid centre at the Alhambra citadel. Even protected by Spanish Heritage law, many of these medieval towers and their cultural landscapes are in severe risk be-cause of anthropic action as well as natural deterioration. Within the framework of the R&D project called ‘Las atalayas que defendieron el reino nazarí de Granada. Análisis y docu-mentación científica (Nazalaya)”, the towers are being studied. As a complement of planimetry obtained by procedures as photogrammetry or terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), complete architectural surveys using non-destructive techniques are being performed as part of the analysis to obtain a global description of construction systems used.
