The impregnability of its enclave made it an ideal defensive site from the outset. The archaeological evidence found on the surface is reflected in a long historical trajectory with an important presence during the Middle Ages, beginning in the Umayyad period, being traditionally identified as Frigiliana la Vieja (Frigiliana the Old). Its slopes were, in the summer of 1569, the scene of the Battle of the Fort of Frigiliana in which the uprising population in the Moorish Axarquia was definitively defeated by the army of Philip II and its presence almost disappeared from the region.