Trepucó is one of the largest Talayotic settlements in Menorca, covering over 4 hectares, which were originally fortified. Only a small portion of the settlement remains at present: a few sections of the outer wall with two square towers, two talayots, the taula enclosure and a variety of the clearly visible remains of a number of dwellings.
The settlement was destroyed during the Second Punic War and its sudden abandonment allowed for archaeological excavation to shed light on its admirably conserved domestic utensils, which are on exhibit at the Museum of Menorca.
The larger talayot and the taula are found at the centre of a star-shaped fortification, which was built using dry stone wall techniques during the 18th century by the Spanish troops who laid siege to the fortress of Saint Philip’s Castle, until then in British hands.
Schedule: Access open year-round
Price: Free
Open: Yes
Access: Access is via the Ronda de Maó ring road, exiting at the Camí de Trepucó roundabout. Continue on for 1.5 km along a country road until reaching the settlement, which is clearly signposted.
Car Park: Yes
Guided tours: Visitor information panels are posted.
Contact:
Services: No
Access for individuals with reduced mobility: Yes
More information See map
More information: The entire settlement was surrounded by an outer wall, of which a few sections still exist. This was built upon earlier buildings, resulting in their final destruction. In the western section, the two square-shaped towers that are still visible were bastions of the fortification.
Within the enclosure, as many as four talayots have been documented, of which only two remain at present:
The first talayot is better preserved and is found at the centre of the star-shaped fortification that was built by Spanish troops. It has a circular floor plan and a truncated cone-shaped profile. Atop the talayot is an apsidal construction with what may have been a central column. The talayot was reinforced in modern times with a wall on the northeast side to avoid the collapse of this side of the wall face.
The second talayot is located in the northwest section of the settlement and is characterised by its internal corridor that leads up toward the top of the building.
The taula enclosure, found just to the south of the large talayot, was excavated in 1930 by Margaret Murray along with a team from the University of Cambridge. As is often the case with this type of structure, a significant amount of ash was discovered off to the right, in front of the entrance. The building is horseshoe shaped with a concave façade and was built with double-sided walls. The taula itself stands 4.80 metres high, and its base stone is fit directly into the rock, with the capital stone simply balancing upon it. The rear of the taula was reinforced with a block of concrete during Murray’s intervention to assure stability. This task would have been carried out today with less intrusive methods, but in the 1930s these were simply the available materials.
Archaeological intervention was executed in the southern section of the enclosure in 2010. This area had already been excavated by M. Murray in 1930 and the intended tasks of restoration eventually became a full excavation with the resulting documentation of multiple structures. The structural remains of three Talayotic dwellings were discovered, one of which was virtually intact, while the others were from a number of different rooms. Ceramic, metallic and bone objects were also documented. The supposed gallery documented by Murray, on the other hand, was actually the lintelled doorway of a building that fell into disuse and was destroyed during prehistoric times to allow for the construction of the taula enclosure. The materials documented from this building and their chronology provided by Carbon-14 dating show them to be from around the late 2nd millennium BC (1300-1000 BC).
Prior to this intervention, other remains from the settlement’s structures had already been discovered. In 1932, Murray herself excavated the west side of the taula enclosure and documented the remains of a dwelling. From 1979 to 1986, the Museum of Menorca carried out a series of excavation campaigns led by L. Plantalamor that took place around the northwest talayot and resulted in the documentation of an entire dwelling and the remains of two more.
Outside of what is strictly the Talayotic settlement, on the path that leads to the Gràcia chapel, there is a necropolis in which two caves with cyclopean enclosing walls have been identified.