Ses Païsses

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Ses Païsses
Main gate east-southeast

Main gate east-southeast
Ses Païsses (Balearic Islands)
Red pog.svg

Location in Mallorca
Coordinates 39 ° 41 '14.3 "  N , 3 ° 21' 13"  E Coordinates: 39 ° 41 '14.3 "  N , 3 ° 21' 13"  E
place Artà , Balearic Islands , Spain
Emergence approx. 1000 to 123 BC Chr.
Dimensions 133 m
height 120  m

Ses Païsses (full name Poblat Talaiòtic de Ses Païsses , "Talaiotic village of Ses Païsses") is an important archaeological excavation site of a settlement on the Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca, which is attributed to the Iron Age Talaiot culture (also Talayot ​​culture) . The remains of the settlement are located southeast of the city of Artà in the region ( comarca ) Llevant . The exact age of the settlement is not known. It is believed that they existed from the beginning of the 1st millennium to around 100  BC. Chr. Inhabited. The site is one of the best preserved examples of megalithic culture in the Balearic Islands.

location

Location of the settlement near Artà

Ses Païsses is located about 400 meters southeast of the outskirts of Artà and is 700 meters from the city center. The Camino de Sa Corballa leads to the prehistoric settlement , an asphalt path that has been developed into a narrow street and branches off at a roundabout next to the former railway line from Avinguda de Costa i Llobera (MA-15). The access from the main road MA-15 is well signposted. A small car park is available next to the Ses Païsses settlement during opening hours. A marked circular route leads through the complex.

The remains of the prehistoric settlement are on a hill surrounded by old holm oaks , 120 to 125 meters above sea level. From here the surrounding area was clearly visible, in which other Talaiot settlements, such as Sos Sastres , about four kilometers away as the crow flies , are located. Like other Talaiotic settlements, Ses Païsses is located near a stream that supplied the residents' water needs. The bed of the Torrent de ses Terretes , a confluence of the Torrent des Revolts and the Torrent des Molinet east of the settlement, runs about 50 meters south of the surrounding wall. To the southwest there is a spring 250 meters away.

Research history

The megalithic settlement of Ses Païsses has been known for centuries, but it was not until 1946 that the archaeological site was declared an art-historical monument and thus placed under protection . In 1950 the state acquired the site. From 1959 to 1963, the Italian archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu , best known for his research into the Sardinian nuraghi , led four excavation campaigns that provided valuable information and uncovered most of the structures visible today. In the 1990s, the Mallorcan archaeologist Javier Aramburu (* 1961) continued Lillius' work and discovered other buildings. Excavation campaigns have been carried out annually since 2004.

The research showed that the central tower, the talaiot, is to be regarded as the oldest part of the settlement and was built at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. Was built. Its function is not clearly clarified. It was probably used as a place for religious ceremonies. But it could also have been a kind of pantry. It was probably not used for defense purposes. In the centuries that followed, various residential buildings were added to the talaiot. According to Aramburu, the curtain wall was built between 650 and 540 BC. Erected when the conflicts between the family clans , who each lived in a Talaiot settlement, made it necessary to protect the complex. Until the incorporation of Mallorca into the Roman Empire in 123 BC. The settlement was permanently inhabited and the buildings were rebuilt several times. After that it was partially destroyed and abandoned.

description

Basic data

Plan of the facility from 2004
  • Culture: Talaiotic and Post-Talaiotic
  • Dating of the finds: between 1000 and 100 BC Chr.
  • Structural engineering: Cyclopean
  • Total area: 10,800 m²
  • Ground plan: almost elliptical
  • Length of the axes: north-south 103 m and east-west 133 m
  • Perimeter of the wall: 374 m
  • Average wall thickness: 3.60 m
  • maximum height of the walls: 3.50 m at the southeast entrance

The structures found

The double-walled wall (2 and 5) that surrounds Ses Païsses was built using the Cyclops technique . It is on average 3.6 meters wide and up to 3.5 meters high at the southeastern entrance. The outer wall rests on large stones, weighing up to eight tons, which were set into the earth. When building the inner wall, smaller stones were used and stacked in rows. The three entrances to the settlement each consist of two large vertical stones as posts, on which another stone slab lies across as a lintel .

Reconstruction of the settlement on the display in front of the entrance

The horseshoe-shaped room (3), which is based on the talaiot, has an area of ​​132 m². Its walls are piled up from relatively small stones in horizontal layers. Inside the room, Lilliu found several hearths with remains of bones, talaiot pottery, iron tools and a burial site. Lilliu and Aramburu date the building to the late period of the settlement.

The apse-shaped building known as the Hypostylos Hall (3) was likely used for communal purposes. It has three free-standing pillars in the middle and seven additional pillars on the walls. A 0.7 meter high corridor leads from here into the central talaiot.

The central tower-like structure, the Talaiot (4), is the oldest building in Ses Païsses. It is a cylindrical tower 12 meters in diameter and 4 meters high. Like talaiots in other settlements, it could have had a pillar in the middle that supported a roof, although neither has survived. The tower is connected to adjacent buildings via two low corridors.

The only street that has been discovered so far is between two buildings with an apsidal floor plan (6). The wall of one building, made of large stones, extends beyond the settlement wall. The other walls are made of smaller stones. The buildings are divided into three chambers by walls made of clay. One of the buildings was no longer inhabited after a fire, but served from the 5th to the 2nd century BC. BC as a burial place.

South of the talaiot are two rooms with a rectangular floor plan (7). In the first, which has an area of ​​25.7 m², the lower part of a column is still preserved. A fireplace was also found here. It is believed that the area was from the 5th to the 1st century BC. Was inhabited. Remnants from Roman times have even been found here, e.g. B. a lamp from the second half of the 2nd century AD. The second room with an area of ​​37.5 m² has two columns inside.

Today's excavation area includes a kidney-shaped building that hugs the inside of the wall and a building with a rectangular floor plan near the entrance. The latter was built in the early days of the settlement in the Cyclops style and later rebuilt.

  • Views of the archaeological site
  • The talaiot
  • Access to the talaiot
  • The Hypostylos Room
  • A rectangular room

Finds worth seeing

The Regional Museum of Artà ( Catalan Museu Regional d'Artà ) in Carrer de l'Estel 4 next to the town hall mainly shows finds of the Talaiot culture from the area around Artà, especially from Ses Païsses. You can see ceramics , jewelry and various objects made of bronze .

Ses Païsses in literature

Memorial monolith to Miquel Costa i Llobera

The Mallorcan writer and clergyman Miquel Costa i Llobera (1854-1922) chose Ses Païsses as the setting for much of the plot of his poem La deixa del geni grec (German: The legacy of the Greek genius ) from 1901. The heroine of the poem, Nuredduna , the granddaughter of the high priest and fortune teller of the holm oak tribe , collects the classical legacy of the Greeks. The place is easy to identify as Ses Païsses.

In memory of the writer, a monolith stands in front of today's main entrance to the settlement.

literature

  • J. Aramburu: Hacia un Modelo Espacial de la Cultura Talayótica en Mallorca . In: Saguntum: Papeles del Laboratorio de Arqueología de Valencia 27, 1994, pp. 126-136
  • J. Aramburu, C. Garrido and V. Sastre: Guía Arqueológica de Mallorca , Olañeta Editor, Palma de Mallorca, 1994.
  • J. Camps, and A. Vallespir: La Estación del Turó de Ses Beies ( Calvià ) , VI. Symposium de Prehistoria Peninsular, Barcelona, ​​1974, pp. 101-114.
  • P. Servera: Archaeological routes: S'Illot, Sa Coma , Palma de Mallorca, 1994-2001 Dipòsit Legal, PM-1492-1994
  • J. Aramburu-Zabala and D. Riera: Ses Païsses (Arta): talaiots i murades , El Tall, Palma de Mallorca 2006, ISBN 84-96019-30-6
  • I. Cabrer González and M. Castells: The Talayot ​​Ses Païsses. Access to Mallorca's prehistory (PDF; 4.54 MB), 2010

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ The numbers refer to the map on the right.
  2. ↑ Miquel Costa i Llobera on www.balearsculturaltour.es, accessed on October 20, 2010

Web links

Commons : Ses Païsses  - collection of images