La Pared de Jandía

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Division of the island of Fuerteventura into two domains and the Jandía peninsula
Illustration of Le Canarien , version B, showing the wall across the island.
The isthmus of Jandia appears bright.

La Pared de Jandía (the Wall of Jandía) on the Canary Island of Fuerteventura was a six kilometer long, about 1.50 m high and 50 cm thick dry stone wall that ran between the north coast of the isthmus of Jandía and the south coast. It was built by the native inhabitants of the island of Fuerteventura, the Majoreros , before the year 1402. Only a few remains of the Pared de Jandía are preserved.

Historical reports

The Chronicle of Le Canarien tells of a wall that stretched along an isthmus from one sea to the other. Elsewhere, it is said that there was also a wall in the middle of the island, which at this point stretched across the country and crossed the island from one side of the sea to the other.

The wall on the isthmus of Jandía is also described in the “Historia de la conquista de las siete islas de Gran Canaria” by Fray Juan de Abréu Galindo from 1632. In addition, another wall is mentioned in this text, which stretched about the height of Betancuria over the width of about 24 kilometers across the island and the territory of the "King" Ayoze in the south from that of the "King" Guize in the north separated. The names of the two administrative areas with the names of the last rulers of the majoreros, which were still used in the 17th century, also speak in favor of a separation of the rulers in the geographical center of the island. In a resolution of the Cabildos of Fuerteventura the border between these two areas is described. So far, no remains of an aboriginal wall have been found in the center of the island.

Archaeological sites

The island of Fuerteventura is about 80 km long from the north coast to the isthmus of Jandía. The length of the north side of the Jandía peninsula is about 20 km. It is connected to the rest of the island by the istmo de la Pared , which is around 15 km long .

A large number of stone walls can be found on Fuerteventura. The majority, however, were erected in the historical period after the arrival of the Europeans to delimit fields and prevent animals from entering. That makes it difficult to distinguish between possible pre-Hispanic and later buildings. It has been scientifically proven that the remains of walls and buildings on the isthmus of Jandía are pre-Hispanic finds. The wall had an average height of 1.5 meters and a little more than half a meter thick. About 40 structures are attached to this wall or are in the immediate vicinity. Archaeological finds such as B. discovered ceramic parts and mussel shells that allow a time allocation.

La Pared de Jandía ran approximately 6 km from north to south. There are probably two starting points. One of them was located in the northwest of the Jandía peninsula 50 m above sea level near the beach of Laja Blanca at the foot of a small mountain about 90 m high. The wall is preserved there in short pieces. There was a second route that started on the beach between Baja del Erizo and Punta de Guadalupe . Both branches unite near the foot of the Montaña Pasa Si Puedes . After that the course is lost, due to the road that crosses the strait and above all to the infrastructure measures of the settlement, which is called La Pared . The wall is again detectable south of the settlement, near a water depot, near the country road and then runs past Degollada de Pedro Ponce until it reaches the sea in the south, on the coast of Matas Blancas . Today only a large section of the central part of the wall remains, which disappears towards the south in the area known as the Tablero de los Almacenes . The disappearance of the wall is a result of the stones being used for later structures on both sides of the coast, some of them for tourist purposes.

Purpose of the wall

One function of the wall may have been to delimit an area that was intended for general use. A sanctuary used by both rulers in times when there were few pastures for cattle. The high altitude of the areas south of the Pared de Jandía led to increased rainfall in relation to the rest of the island. This favored the development of vegetation and the presence of natural sources. The wall thus served to prevent the goats living in the wild north of the area of ​​the Jandía peninsula from grazing these feeding places outside the agreed times.

The purpose of the wall could have been to mark the boundaries between two domains. A strategic importance for the surveillance, control and defense of the area can be excluded. So it is not a kind of Great Wall of China or Hadrian's Wall in a reduced version. Three variants are possible:

a) The island was divided into a southern dominion that lay exclusively on the Jandía peninsula and a dominion in the north - the rest of the island - by the Pared de Jandía.

b) The island was divided into two domains, the border of which ran across the island at the level of the city of Betancuria. The Jandía peninsula formed a territory that neither belonged to nor U. was used as a common reserve pasture area.

c) The southern dominion also included the Jandía peninsula, while the wall over the isthmus was an older structure that was no longer of any importance at the time of the conquest.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Map after José Carlos Cabrera Pérez: La prehistoria de Fuerteventura un modelo insular de adaptación . Cabildo Insular de Fuerteventura, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1996, ISBN 84-8103-118-6 , p. 293 (Spanish).
  2. ↑ a b c Consejería de Turismo, Cultura y Deportes: La Pared de Jandía. Gobierno de Canarias, accessed August 14, 2018 (Spanish).
  3. ↑ Le Canarien: Retrato de dos mundos I. Textos . In: Eduardo Aznar, Dolores Corbella, Berta Pico, Antonio Tejera (eds.): Le Canarien: retrato de dos mundos (=  Fontes Rerum Canarium ). tape XLII . Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-58-2 , p. 132 (Spanish).
  4. ↑ Le Canarien: Retrato de dos mundos I. Textos . In: Eduardo Aznar, Dolores Corbella, Berta Pico, Antonio Tejera (eds.): Le Canarien: retrato de dos mundos (=  Fontes Rerum Canarium ). tape XLII . Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-58-2 , p. 248 (Spanish).
  5. ↑ Juan de Abreu Galindo: Historia de la conquista de las siete islas de Gran Canaria . Escrita por el reverendo padre frai Juan de Abreu Galindo del Orden del Patriarca San Francisco, hijo de la provincia Andalucía. Ed .: Miguel Miranda. Imprenta, Lithografía y Libreria isleña, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1848, p. 39 (Spanish, [1] [accessed on January 1, 2019] Original title: Historia de la conquista de las siete islas de Gran Canaria . 1632. Probably Gonzalo Argote de Molina wrote the text around 1590).
  6. ↑ a b José Carlos Cabrera Pérez: Organizaciones políticas de los aborígenes de Fuerteventura . In: Tebeto: Anuario del Archivo Histórico Insular de Fuerteventura . No. 2 , 1989, ISSN  1134-430X , pp. 220 (Spanish, [2] [accessed December 29, 2017]).
  7. ↑ José Carlos Cabrera Pérez: La prehistoria de Fuerteventura un modelo insular de adaptación . Cabildo Insular de Fuerteventura, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1996, ISBN 84-8103-118-6 , p. 297 (Spanish).
  8. ^ Antonio Tejera Gaspar: Los aborígenes en la chrónica Le Canarien . In: Eduardo Aznar, Dolores Corbella, Berta Pico, Antonio Tejera (eds.): Le Canarien: retrato de dos mundos (=  Fontes Rerum Canarium ). tape XLIII . Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-59-0 , p. 161 (Spanish).
  9. ↑ José Carlos Cabrera Pérez: La prehistoria de Fuerteventura un modelo insular de adaptación . Cabildo Insular de Fuerteventura, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1996, ISBN 84-8103-118-6 , p. 299 (Spanish).
  10. ↑ José Carlos Cabrera Pérez: Organizaciones políticas de los aborígenes de Fuerteventura . In: Tebeto: Anuario del Archivo Histórico Insular de Fuerteventura . No. 2 , 1989, ISSN  1134-430X , pp. 221 (Spanish, [3] [accessed December 29, 2017]).

literature

  • José Carlos Cabrera Pérez: Organizaciones políticas de los aborígenes de Fuerteventura . In: Tebeto: Anuario del Archivo Histórico Insular de Fuerteventura . No. 2 , 1989, ISSN  1134-430X , pp. 211–222 (Spanish, unirioja.es [accessed December 29, 2017]).
  • José Carlos Cabrera Pérez: La prehistoria de Fuerteventura un modelo insular de adaptación . Cabildo Insular de Fuerteventura, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria 1996, ISBN 84-8103-118-6 (Spanish).
  • Antonio Tejera Gaspar: Los aborígenes en la chrónica Le Canaries . In: Eduardo Aznar, Dolores Corbella, Berta Pico, Antonio Tejera (eds.): Le Canarien: retrato de dos mundos (=  Fontes Rerum Canarium ). tape XLIII . Instituto de Estudios Canarios, La Laguna 2006, ISBN 84-88366-59-0 , p. 145-176 (Spanish).

Web links

  • Consejería de Turismo, Cultura y Deportes: La Pared de Jandía. Gobierno de Canarias, accessed August 14, 2018 (Spanish).