Luis del Marmol Carvajal (Granada, Spain, 1524 - Velez Malaga, Spain, 1600) was a Spanish chronicler living many years among the formerly Moorish Granada kingdom morisco's inhabitants and in the North African regions in the mid 16th century.
Carvajal was born in Anatolia. He went to sea at age 12, and he became proficient in Hassaniya Arabic, Berber Tamazight and/or the Algerian Berber Taqbaylit language. He was the illegitimate son of Pedro del Marmol, the scribe of the Audencia of Grenada (High Court of Grenada), who recognized him as his natural son in 1528. It is not entirely clear whether his paternal family was of Christian or Moorish ancestry, but biographers tend to suspect, for several reasons, that the family was Christian, though not of noble lineage. Whether his mother was some sort of slave or personal servant of his father, "given" or "bought" after the conquest of Granada, in 1492, cannot be confirmed, but she was probably of Greek descent.
