Snow houses in Mallorca
The snowhouses ( Majorcan Cases de Neu ) on the Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca are historical, no longer used buildings in the high elevations of the Serra de Tramuntana , the highest mountain on the island. They presented their construction as building a variant of the ice-house is, however, served not only to storage, but also for the production of ice .
location
The Serra de Tramuntana mountain range stretches along the northwest coast of Mallorca from the municipality of Andratx in the southwest of the island to Pollença in the north . The mountains, rising to over 1000 meters above sea level, shield the rest of Mallorca from the often strong and cold north and west winds with the accompanying precipitation. In the “mountains of the north wind”, as the mountains are translated, it rains much more heavily and more frequently, primarily on the coast, than in the plains of the Plà de Mallorca or the eastern mountain range of the Serres de Llevant . In winter, sometimes until the beginning of April , the precipitation falls from an altitude of 700 meters as snow , which often remains at a height of over 1000 meters.
In 2002, 46 locations of former snowhouses in the Serra de Tramuntana were known, eleven of them on Puig de Massanella , nine on Mallorca's highest mountain at 1,445 meters, Puig Major , five on Puig des Teix and three on Puig Tomir . The remaining ruins of the Cases de Neu are spread across different locations within the Tramuntana Mountains. All known locations of the snow houses are at an altitude of 400 to 1400 meters, 23 alone are between 900 and 1200 meters, seven above this height. The orientation of the buildings on the mountain flanks ranges from mostly north (24) to west (11) to east (10), none of the ruins show a southerly orientation. Even today recognizable laid-out paths lead to the more remote snow houses, which were often paved with natural stone .
history
Historical documents describe the collection and storage of snow in the Serra de Tramuntana since the 16th century, as evidenced in records from 1564 and documentary mentions of 42 of the Cases de Neu within the Tramuntana Mountains. From 1656 a regulation of the trade in snow by the Capítol de l'Obligat de la Neu is known. The snow houses were artificial, sometimes also natural, shaft-like depressions, which were lined inside with dry masonry , similar in construction to the Mallorcan Tanca walls (also called Marges ). The masonry protruded about a meter from the ground or rock and was covered with an insulating roof made of bound reeds or a mixture of rushes and bricks, rarely also with stones.
(1750, image detail )
Most of the Cases de Neu were about 10 to 16 meters long, almost rectangular buildings. Their width averaged 6 meters, the largest reached widths up to 8 meters. The pits inside were up to 6 meters deep, although the majority of the structures were only 3 to 5 meters deep. More than half of the snow houses known today had outbuildings as accommodation for the workers, the Nevaters ("snowmen"). These shelters appear more frequently the higher the respective snow house was. The same applies to the newly created paths especially for the Cases de . In about a quarter of the snowhouses, dry stone walls were built nearby, which served to accumulate snowdrifts and thus make it easier to collect the snow.
The work of the Nevaters was only a sideline for them, who made up about ten to fourteen days of the year. During this time, the collected snow was poured into the Cases de Neu through small windows and compacted into ice there. Afterwards, well covered by insulating material such as reeds or straw, the ice lasted into the summer months. Gradually it was mainly sold in the island's capital Palma to the local food industry, to hospitals, but also to wealthy private individuals. In gastronomy, the ice was used in the production of ice cream and refreshments, in markets it was used, for example, by fishmongers to keep their goods fresh, and in the medical sector it was used to stop bleeding and treat burns.
The times of the Cases de Neu ended with the introduction of electric cooling and freezing systems, especially in industry. After 1927 the last snow house on the Puig de Massanella had also had its day. Since then, these historic buildings have been in various stages of decay. Many of the paths laid out to the snow houses, on which the ice was once transported on mules to the nearest roads and then brought down to the valley on donkey carts, are now used as hiking trails. The GR 221 long-distance hiking trail leads past several sites of snow house ruins. In the Massanella massif, a mountain pass, the 1142 meters high Coll de ses Cases de Neu , is named after the former structures.
At the beginning of 2011, the two-year restoration of a snow house on behalf of the island council was completed. The building from 1692, consisting of a shaft for ice storage and a small house for the workers, is located on the grounds of Finca Son Massip .
literature
- Lluís Vallcaneras Nebot: Les cases de new i els seus itineraris . 1ª Reimpresión, Mallorca: Gorg Blau 2002, ISBN 84-922372-6-0 (Catalan).
Web links
- Las Casas de nieve y sus itinerarios (Castilian)
- Snow houses in Mallorca
- Snow houses of the Massanella massif ( Memento from April 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
supporting documents
- ↑ a b c Las Casas de nieve y sus itinerarios
- ↑ a b Snow houses of the Massanella massif ( Memento from April 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b c Snow houses on Mallorca
- ↑ Restored snow house from 1692. Article in Mallorca-Zeitung No. 569 of March 31, 2011, p. 12