Talatí de Dalt. 2022.

Continuing with my intention of revisiting all the T shaped monuments called 'Taula' on the island, this afternoon I went to Talatí de Dalt.

At the entrance to the ruins of Talatí de Dalt there is a talayot. The structure of the settlement is divided into the public area, with a sanctuary and central taula, and the private area, with houses and hypostyle chambers (storage rooms). This taula is unusual in that it is balanced against a column which must have fallen against it accidentally, but which is still in equilibrium today.

Taula Sanctuary

The finds located during the excavations shed light on the trype of diet people had by then. The study of the bones that were found gives us informations about what the inhabitants of this settlement had.

Storage chambers

Goats. For meat and milk.

Sheep. Their wool was posibly used to produce textiles.

Pigs. Their fat was very important since olive oil was not produced in Menorca yet in this period.

Oxen. Possibly used as draught animals for transportation and plowing.

Cows. For meat and milk to make cheese. 

Na Beltrana

 

Another of the prehistoric religious sites called Taulas. This one in Ferreries. In a farm called Na Beltrana

Son Rotger.

Experts believe that there are 33 of these monuments from the Neolithic Era. It might be there were more but they were either destroyed or just they have not survived to this day.

In any case, I was determined to find this winter some of those that are not easily accessible and this is one of them.

Just before entering the town of Cala en Porter, by road with a gate entitled 'Sant Vicent' which leads to the farm of San Rotger can be seen. In the bush on the right side  lies a talayot (block piled tower). And on the eastern rocky foot of the talayot, a headless taula with scratches stands. Curiously, this taula does not stand on the rocky foot level but in a pit like a bathtub with other pillar stones.

Es Caparrot de Forma

On the cape of Caparrot de Forma near the Es Canutells development is a necropolis consisting of 23 artificial caves or hypogeums.

Of particular interest on the site is a large wall running across the coastal headland along the isthmus. Inside, two circular constructions can be distinguished, and under a pile of stones, a fresh water well. The wall is included as part of the Talayotic Minorca World Heritage bid.

Torrellafuda

The Torrellafuda settlement dates from the Talayotic era and was inhabited until Islamic times, as indicated by the archaeological remains found. 

The settlement, set in a holm oak wood, consists of a single large talayot, a taula enclosure, several houses and a necropolis of four hypogeums or artificial caves. There are other structures including a cistern from the Roman or Mediaeval era and sections of a cyclopean-type wall.

In one of the hypogeums a batch of lead sling balls from the Roman era was found.

Water

 

Since ancient times water has been a problem in Menorca. The Mediterranean climate alternates rainy seasons with persistent droughts and since prehistoric times, man has had to manage to get his supply of water for consumption and irrigation.

 

 

Most of the Talayotic villages are in the southern zone, where it is easier to get water. 

The ease of obtaining water in a dry and rocky terrain such as our island, has configured the human settlement in Menorca. The vast majority of settlements are in the southern area where it is easier to get it.

Cave used since the ancient times to store water.

Ruins of the Church of Sant Joan de Carbonell. This town, located close to the road to Fornells, was abandoned during the 19th century due to the lack of water on the ground.

Some types of artifact to extract water.

Sant Joan d'es Vergers.

According to the Menorcan Chronicle, King Alfonso III, after a bloody battle against the Muslims, let his army to rest in a place called Pla des Vergers, only a few miles from the Hotel, and ordered two masses to be sung: one in honor of the Virgin Mary as symbol of the new era begins for the island within the Christianity and the other one for the souls of the killed in battle. Over time, a chapel to San Juan Bautista would be built in this place. This was built in the 14th or 15th centuries, since the construction system corresponds to the Levantine Gothic. 

 

 In the middle of the 16th century there was a brotherhood of San Juan in Mahón that annually organized a parade to the chapel to celebrate the Baptist festival. This was held until well into the 19th century.

The little church has undergone many reforms throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. According to Archduke Lluís Salvador, the current church is the result of a restoration in 1712. It is a small building, with a single nave covered with a simple ribbed vault and divided into two sections by an ogival arch. It does not have side chapels and the vault discharges on two exterior buttresses. The interior decoration is very sober. The 19th century façade is a body added to the nave with a slightly pointed arch that gives access to a small portico covered with a pointed vault. This is topped with a belfry. On the access portal there is a small window with the openwork Maltese cross.

I hope this could also be the beginning of something new and the end of this pandemic that would be left behind.

Cala d'es Pou d'en Caldes

 

 

One of the sections of Cami de Cavalls that best define the rich and varied environments that make up the island’s north coast. The itinerary starts at Cap de Favàritx, a space that is well known for its dark rocks and the scarcity of vegetation.

The course passes through typical Minorcan agricultural surroundings, formed of ploughed fields, fields for livestock to graze in and areas with Mediterranean bushes. As the path approaches the coast again, it reaches Pou d’en Caldes, a space with dense concentration of endemic plants.

 

 Arenal de Mongofre

Pou d'en Caldes

Mongofre Vell
 

Cavalleria

 

Undoubtedly, the times we are living are uncertain, but that gives us the opportunity to revisit some places that I wanted to see after some time.

The initial idea was to walk from Cala Pregonda to Cala Viola, in the Cavalleria area, trying to find in the rocks of the coast a deposit of cephalopod fossils that I had heard of.

But the area well worth a visit. 

 

 The beach at Cavalleria, also known as Cala Viola de Llevant.  A beautiful and lonely beach in these first days of November.

Although it was not what I was looking I found this set of fossils of plant appearance.

In practically the entire coastal contour of the island there are military structures that were built before the Spanish Civil War. Most of them belong to the state because they are located within the maritime-terrestrial domain zone.

 
However, in many of them, some locals have turned them into fishing warehouses or even places to spend the weekend .It's not the right thing to do, but at least they take care of the buildings and prevent their deterioration.

The stone cross at Barranc d'Algendar

When Dr Camps wrote this story in 1910, he commented that it had already happened many years ago.

 
The fact is that in an undetermined time in the middle of 1800 there was a man in the town of Ferreries who was said to be able to talk to the birds and who use to make remedies with herbs that he collected from the wild fields that wade through the ravine.

 
On one occasion in the middle of a winter, he left town. Some said that to catch a nest of real hawks, others that to collect a plant called "Jew's beard", the fact is that he did not return to town that night, and it became a stormy night

 
The next morning he was found dead at the foot of the rock from which he had clearly fallen off.

 
And even when many stories circulated through the town as a result of the people superstition at that time, their parents ordered the erection of a stone cross that even today, almost 200 years later, appears among the almost insurmountable exuberant vegetation at the bottom of the ravine.

 

 

Restoration of paintings in the vaults of Santa Maria

It has been hard work but the restoration of the paintings of the largest church in Mahón is already finished.

The Church of Santa Maria Mahon, was built between 1748 and 1772 on the site of a thirteenth-century Gothic church. The interior is neo-Gothic style, with a single vaulted nave, has many side chapels dedicated to different saints. Outside we find a very simple decor, with a bell tower and the door that opens onto a small enclosed space.

It has an impressive organ built in 1810 by masters Francisco Otter and Joan Kiburz from Barcelona. It´s 15 meters high and 9 meters wide. It has four keyboards and 3006 pipes sound (197 are made of wood and the remaining of metal).

All pictures by Andreu Murillo.

The Shipwreck of "General Chanzy" 110 years ago.

One of the worst disasters ever to occur in Menorca, took place at 5 in the morning of February 9th 1910, during a tremendous storm with hurricane force winds and giant waves, when the luxury 2300 tonne French passenger/cargo steamship 'General Chanzy', en route from Marseille to Algiers, crashed into the cliffs close to Punta Nati on the northwest coast of Menorca. As she immediately began to sink her boilers exploded.

 The General Chanzy in the Harbour of Marseille

The scale of the disaster was only revealed at 8 in the morning on the Saturday 11th, some 48 hours after the accident, when the sole survivor 23 year old Marcel Baudez, presented himself to the farmhouse of Son Escudero asking for help. Within days the terrible truth would be known; 159 persons had lost their lives in this accident.

 The Cliffs at Punta Nati with rough sea.

The funerary monument in the Ciutadella Cemetery

 

 Load recovery works.

 The saddest job. Collecting of the copses that could be recovered.

Son Mercer de Baix. Naviforme settlement.

The settlement consists of a set of boat-shaped stone dwellings known as naviformes, which gave their name to a long Prehistoric period in the island’s history (1700-1400 B.C.). Seven dwellings have been identified in all, with two different types, five horseshoe-shaped and two square. Although most of them are small, the settlement is spectacular for the strategic position it ocupies overlooking the ravine of Son Fideu and for one of its buildings, the Cova des Moro. The settlers lived off the land around and in the ravine, which was also their route to the sea.

 The farm house at Son Mercer de Baix.

 The same farm house, in the 1940's

Cova d'es Moro

 Horseshoe-shaped dwelling

 The fertile land at the ravine of Son Fideu.

The Cova des Moro is the only known naviforme that still has its horizontal stone roof slabs in place, supported by three vertical pillars. The outer wall is very regular and built with very well-squared stones. The roof of this type of building would normally have been made of wood, mud and branches, which did not survive the passage of time. In this case, part of the roof has been preserved; it was restored in 2002 after collapsing in the late 1990s.
Excavation work carried out on the settlement unearthed a number of bronze items, now on display in the Museum of Menorca. They include a small ingot, fragments of slag, a chisel and a bracelet, showing that the people who lived here knew how to make bronze.

San Clemente

San Clemente, or Sant Climent as we call it in menorquin is a traditional village Close to Mahón.

A group of farms and country houses have been located here since the very old times. In fact most of the farms in the area have names of Arab origin so probably they were already here 800 years ago.

The current church, built in 1889, replaced an earlier one, from the 17th century, and occupies a centralizing place in the village center.

Sa Torre Vella - The Old Tower.

I have always liked the old country houses of Menorca.
 
Built hundreds of years ago using the poor resources offered by the agricultural environment on the island. Many times the main element of its architecture is limestone rudimentary extracted from the rock of the soil. They saw times of good harvest and many others of misery and suffering, as can be deduced from the defensive elements that can be seen in some of them.

Photographed "Sa Torre Vella" in Alayor in 1987. It was still active but a holding that housed the old tower had deteriorated so much over the years that could barely be intuited and during the years that followed fell, like so many other farms of Menorca in the abandonment
 
Today, the Fontanille Group has restored the old houses and turned them into a select hotel away from the mundane noise where the charm of the old rural architecture can still be appreciated. Hundreds of years later.

Creu d'es Tres Termes.

In Menorca there are still some crosses that mark some fact or location and that are erected in old country roads. The oldest are from the middle ages and some of them are exhibited in local museums as they have been removed from the roads to prevent deterioration.

The cross in the photograph is not one of the oldest, but it is certainly more than a hundred years old. It is at the exact point that marks the divisions of the lands of the term of Mahon, Es Castell and Sant Lluis.

Wayside crosses are especially common in Roman Catholic regions. Most of them were erected in previous centuries by the local population as a sign of their faith. Several of them were put up at places where an accident or a crime took places. The custom of placing an "accident cross" at spots on the roadside where people have been killed has, meanwhile, spread worldwide. Many wayside crosses, however, simply act as waymarks to indicate difficult or dangerous spots or to mark intersections. On walking maps, wayside crosses and shrine are displayed in order to aid orientation. On many crosses there is an inscription which may indicate why the cross was erected and by whom.

Burial niches in Calan Blanes.

Small set of niches of Greek or Roman origin. Apparently they are related to some type of funeral rite.

Biniai Nou

The megalithic entrance hypogeums are small artificial cavesthat were dug into the rock with a corridor of large slabs. The hypogea of Biniai Nou are, until now, the oldest buildings dating from Menorca and were used as collective burial spaces for the first communities on the island.

The Wind Star in front of the old British arsenal

 The MSY Wind Star is a motor sailing yacht, sailing as a cruise ship for Windstar Cruises. She is one of an unusual class of only three vessels (msy Wind Star,msy Wind Spirit, and msy Wind Song), designed as a modern cruise ship but carrying an elaborate system of computer-controlled sails on four masts.

More than 300 years ago a naval base was built in Mahon harbour to meet the needs of the British navy. Many of the buildings that once were the old arsenal are today part of a Spanish Navy base which is not open to the public but it can be seen and viewed from many points in Mahon town, or from the Yellow Catamarans which do the harbour trips every day.

There is also an artificial island called Isla Pinto, filled by the British in 1768 from an island, giving it its present form. Among other stories, more than fifteen ships were built there between 1786 and 1798. It was an area used to clean the bottom of the ships of the Dutch and British fleets from before 1708, as one of the safest places and sheltered port of Mahon.

 The old arsenal today.

 Pinto Island in 1870

Pinto Island today