Jaca

Jaca was the city out of which the County and Kingdom of Aragon developed. It was the first capital of the Kingdom of Aragon until 1096 and also the capital of Jacetania. Besides Jaca town, there are a number of outlying villages in the municipality of Jaca, including the ski resort of Astún. The origins of the city are obscure, but its name is apparently of Iacetani origin, as Strabo lists them as one of the most celebrated of the numerous small tribes inhabiting the Ebro basin. Strabo adds that their territory lay on the site of the wars in the 1st century BC between Sertorius and Pompey. According to the atlas of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, Jaca was a town where minted coins were made from the second half of the 2nd century BC, a small number of which are now in the British Museum. The coins show an unidentified bearded head to the right with an inscription to the left and also have an image of a dolphin. The reverse depicts a horseman carrying a spear to the right, with an inscription below in Iberian reading iaka.