The Amics del Museu de Menorca team is currently working on the second excavation and restoration campaign of the late medieval structure of Torralba d'en Salort. The team has found the remains of a rural dwelling from the 15th and 16th centuries with later reuses.
This is a programmed excavation which makes it possible to document through archaeology what rural life was like for the Christian repopulators of the island after the conquest of 1287 and, therefore, the
origin of a large part of the Menorcans of today. On
August 24, at 7 pm, a visiting day will be held there and the researchers will explain in detail the progress of the project.
The area of the intervention is a structural complex located on the western edge of Torralba, of which only a depreciated doorway with two chapels on the sides crowned by two incised Latin crosses could be identified.
Eclipsed by the monumental archaeological remains, historians and archaeologists who have written about the site (Mascaró-Pasarius, Fernández-Miranda, Gornés or Riudavets and Bravo, among others) had suggested that it could be the rubble of the old houses of Torralba or, perhaps, of a rural hermitage. The peasants who lived in the area generally referred to this rubble as "the old houses of Torralba".
The excavation and restoration work was entrusted to a team of specialists from Amics del Museu de Menorca (Friends of the Museum of Menorca), who determined that if the history of this structure was to be known in depth, it was necessary to approach it not only from the study of the archaeological remains - which must be preserved and made comprehensible to the public - but also with an in-depth study of the documentation on Torralba kept in the island's historical archives. To this end, a team was formed, co-directed by Borja Corral and Carlos de Salort, with the collaboration of restorers and conservators such as Francesc Isbert and Cecília Ligero and the historian specialising in the medieval period Jordi Saura, among others.
Campaign 2023
This is the second campaign of intervention on the structure and will last until August 25. Eight students and university graduates from Valencia, Seville and Madrid are taking part, as well as several volunteers living in Menorca. The project is largely funded by the Fundació Illes Balears and the aid for actions to improve historical knowledge of Menorca from the Department of Culture, Education, Youth and Sports of the Consell Insular de Menorca.
The previous campaign, in August 2022, served to rediscover under the vegetation
a structural complex of some 300 m2 and to dismantle a large stone structure from the contemporary period: more than 50 tons of stones under which a large part of the late medieval building was found. The construction of this building - distribution of the areas, materials used, etc. - are very similar to those of the old
llocs with stone and mortar walls, remains of arches, marés vaults, Arab tiles, lime mortar plastering, lime whitewashing, etc. It certainly seems to be a rural dwelling, the house of an abandoned
lloc.
The nature of this type of construction, thin walls, made with two courses of stones and poor quality earth mortar, has obliged archaeologists and restorers to intervene practically at the same time: the areas that are excavated are immediately consolidated in order to minimally compromise the integrity of the old building and to make it comprehensible to the public.
Materials recovered
During these weeks, the archaeologists have been recovering objects that speak of the life of the inhabitants of Torralba. As usual,
fragments of crockery, pottery and glass are the most frequent in the material repertoire, especially crockery from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Some of these fragments are imported, a testimony to how the commercial and consumer relations that Menorca maintained with different European countries reached the countryside.
As could not be otherwise, locally manufactured crockery has also been recovered, pieces that can still be found on display in many Menorcan homes. Remains related to habits and practices that have been present in Menorca for centuries, such as religion or pipe smoking, have also been recovered. Some of them well known but curious, such as board games.
Both the material remains and the documents suggest that this was someone's home during the 15th and 16th centuries. Based on the emptying of
fadigas books,
capbreus and notarial documentation, the possession or possessions of Torralba must be associated with
a few families of repopulating settlers from the Catalan-Aragonese crown with surnames as recurrent in Menorca in the 15th and 16th centuries as in the 20th and 21st centuries, such as Gonyalons, Marqués or Villalonga. Furthermore, for the moment, everything suggests that the house was abandoned in the 17th century for reasons that are still unknown. However, at the end of the 18th century or during the 19th century, the structure was modified, although it is not yet known whether it was used as a dwelling or for another purpose.