Archaeological and documentary analysis of Menorca’s Phoenician-Punic architecture.
Location:In its origins, the project considers the archaeo-architectural analysis (documentary and descriptive) of multiple insular sites, especially the settlements of Torrellafuda and Son Catlar, although also via study of Trepucó, Torralba d’en Salort, So na Caçana, Talatí de Dalt, Sa Torreta de Tramuntana, Torrellisà, Torretrencada and the hypogea at Cala Morell. While in Torrellafuda research was carried out in 2015 in hopes of better understanding the settlement’s period of occupation, since 2016 it is the Son Catlar settlement that has undergone a majority of recent interventions.
In this truly exceptional settlement, the largest on the island covering 4.5 ha, we researched the origin and purpose of the settlement’s defence system made up of a one-kilometre-long wall with attached towers and bastions, a bent entrance, sections of cremallera and others with guard posts and casemates. This is a unique complex, fruit of the integration of island communities into Punic influence from the 5th century BC, an alliance that would mark its destiny until the Roman conquest of 123 BC.
Project managers:
Team:Fernando Prados Martínez
Helena Jiménez Vialás
Mª José León Moll
Joan C. de Nicolás Mascaró
Scientific objectives:Modular’s primary purpose involves the study of the Phoenician and Punic world through its architectural expressions. Our goal is to further awareness regarding Phoenician-Punic society through analysis of its architecture, as one of the most eloquent reflexions of its collective personality. We therefore intend to identify its defining traits by calibrating its fusion and contact with architectural styles used in those territories of its natural colonial and political expansion around the Central and Western Mediterranean throughout the first millennium BC, as is the case of the island of Menorca.
Specific objectives:
- Evaluate the interaction between the insular population and Punic communities through architectural expressions dating to between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC, focusing on exogenous indications and the different transformations that affected local substrata.
- Characterise the period referred to as either Post or Late Talayotic, determining its historical patterns and processes, so as to obtain a clearer idea of what this moment meant to those who inhabited the island before the Roman conquest and the inherent dissolution of their autochthonous identity.
- Establish Son Catlar as a fundamental archaeological site for comprehension of the island’s history, through tasks of scientific research and awareness, while also making it an indispensable heritage reference for Menorcan society.
Results obtained:In 2014, we confirmed the existence of an architectural culture typical of the Post-Talayotic period with a notable contribution from the influx of Punic society, starting primarily in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Evidence has been observed, both with regard to technological aspects (carving and transportation of stone blocks, bonding and building techniques) and typologically (models of active defences, defensive systems, ground plans for dwellings, etc.) in the various sites analysed, from Trepucó or Torralba d’en Salort to Sa Torreta de Tramuntana or Cala Morell, among others.
All of this led to the decision, in 2015, to undertake an initial surveying in the vicinity of Torrellafuda, which with minimal impact on heritage, would allow for verification of the site’s different phases of occupation, given the minimal available information at the time and its impressive defensive enclosure composed of an outer wall of casemates and what may have been a defensive system that included a curtain wall and a ditch. This survey also revealed both ceramic and metallic materials that could illustrate a possible situation of siege or warlike conflict that due to their chronology may be related to the Second Punic War or the subsequent Roman conquest.
The settlement that to date has revealed the greatest amount of evidence of the relationship between island communities and Punic society is most certainly Son Catlar. Its exceptional wall and the archaeological potential of its interior, virtually undiscovered, were determining factors to execute an initial excavation within the two bastions of the settlement’s northeast corner, where their possible origins as Roman fortifications was refuted since, at that time, one of the bastions had been plundered and covered with waste. Excavation of the eastern tower commenced in 2017, revealing that these elements were part of the same horizon from the 4th and 3rd centuries BC and served to reinforce Son Catlar’s original wall.
In the settlement’s western area, what was believed to be one of these destroyed bastions was actually a bent entrance, as a defensive architectural strategy previously unseen on the island, although notably present in cities punished by wars fought around the Mediterranean in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC like the Greco-Punic Wars or those fought by these cultures against the Romans. With the already existing data and the addition of newly discovered data from recent years, we were able to execute a Master Plan for the settlement with regard to its public acquisition. In 2019, in addition to the excavation of another tower and the discovery of the settlement’s bent entrance, interventions were also made in its interior, at the northern entrance, which revealed a set of guard posts, as part of the reinforcements made to Son Catlar whose ultimate goal was none other than that of fighting a common enemy: Rome.
Supporting entities:Island Council of Menorca
Camping Cap-Blanch
University of Alicante