The Story of Majorca and Minorca

by Sir Clements R. Markham

The primitive inhabitants appear to have been cave-dwellers. The buildings may have belonged to a later period. They have been described by several observers, notably by M. Emile Cartailhac in his ‘Monuments primitifs des Iles Baléares’;[31] but never more clearly, and with more competent knowledge of similar monuments in other parts of the world, than by Dr. Guillemard in his very able paper read before the Cambridge Antiquarian Society. Dr. Guillemard divides the Minorcan prehistoric buildings into four classes: (1) the so-called towns, (2) the Naus or ship-like edifices, (3) the Taulas or Bilithons, (4) the Talayuts.

The towns, really the size of small hamlets, are surrounded by a wall with a megalithic gateway, and sometimes with small towers on the walls, which consist of large blocks of limestone. Inside there are the remains of small square buildings, with underground low and narrow passages or caves.

The Naus is a building with a supposed resemblance to a ship, one end being pointed and the other square. There are only a few on the island. Cartailhac mentions nine. Their length is from twenty-five to forty feet, height fifteen to eighteen. The finest, called ‘Nau d’Es Tudons,’ is near Ciudadela. It consists of large blocks of stone dressed with a hammer. The entrance is three feet square, leading to a sort of vestibule, whence another door opens into the main chamber, which is supported by pillars down the middle. These edifices are carefully built, and were evidently the tombs of great men.

The Taulas are two massive stones joined by a deep tenon and mortise and cut with remarkable care. The lower one is upright, and bears the upper one horizontally, like a table. They are in the centre of a building in the form of a semicircle forty feet across, the two ends being joined by a wall. Some twelve or fourteen taulas remain. They must almost certainly have been altars, or the main features of temples. These taulas appear to be closely allied to such edifices as Stonehenge or those at Avebury. In that case, they may be considered to date from about the same period, a date which has been ascertained astronomically by Sir Norman Lockyer—2000 B.C. The race of men who built them extended over Europe. They had dolichocephalic heads of average capacity, oval faces, aquiline noses, low foreheads, exactly like the skulls from the Basque provinces. They were not only spread over Europe, but established themselves in Mauritania (Morocco) and were probably the ancestors alike of the Guanches of Tenerife and the Baleares of these islands.

The fourth class of prehistoric edifices consists of the Talayuts, so called from the Arabic ‘Atalaya’ or scout, hence watch-tower. Their height is usually not more than twenty feet. The largest, called ‘Torre Llafuda,’ is forty feet high. They are often forty feet in diameter at the base and six or seven feet less at the top. In 1818 Ramis gave a list of 195 of them, of which 142 were in fair condition. Since that time many have been used for limekilns or as quarries in building houses. They are all built of the rough vesicular limestone of the surrounding land, and the stones are generally roughly dressed and laid in courses. The walls are of enormous thickness, with a circular chamber in the centre, supported by a pillar of massive stones. There is usually a doorway on the south side.

Their object has been a puzzle. They were not watch-towers from the positions of many of them; not fortresses, not dwellings, not temples, not tombs, for no bones are found. I believe that Dr. Guillemard, whose excellent descriptions of the Minorcan prehistoric remains I have been quoting, has hit upon the right solution. The fields are covered with stones, and one of the principal occupations of the husbandman is to clear the stones off the cultivable land. In modern times they make stone walls, for something has to be done with them. Dr. Guillemard holds that the talayuts are the stones cleared from the fields by the ancient people. They built these very solid towers with them, which served to house pigs and sheep at night; perhaps also as a look-out place, where their positions would serve such a purpose. But clearing the fields of stones was the primary object.

The Minorcan builders of stone temples, tombs, and dwellings, and pilers up of stones were prehistoric beyond any doubt, and may have worked and worshipped them four thousand years ago. The Phœnicians probably found their descendants on the island, and they became subject to the Semitic traders and their Carthaginian offshoots, who held the Balearic Islands while they were dominant in Spain. Minorca was best known as possessing the most capacious and safest harbour in the Mediterranean, and its name of Port Mahon makes the giver of that name an important factor in the story of the island.

Mago was the youngest son of Hamilcar Barca, and when he first began to serve under his brother Hannibal in Italy, in B.C. 218, he must have been very young; but his capacity and fitness for command were soon realised by the great general. Mago was given command of the cavalry, and led his troops across the river Po, each man swimming by the side of his horse. Mago did distinguished service at the battle of Trebia, and was by his brother’s side at Cannæ. He was then detached to reduce Samnium and the Bruttii. In about B.C. 212 he was sent to reinforce his other brother, Hasdrubal, in Spain. It was a losing cause, for the Carthaginians vainly opposed the victorious career of Scipio. The brothers resisted long. At last they were hopelessly defeated by Scipio at a place called Silpia, apparently in the Sierra Morena. Mago long held out at Gades. Here he received orders to collect troops and ships, and to make a diversion by landing at Genoa and transferring the seat of war to Italy. Having diligently assembled troops and the means of transport, he left Spain for ever and made sail, shaping a course, in compliance with his instructions, from Carthage. Mago wintered in the splendid harbour at the eastern end of Minorca, which has ever since borne his name—Portus Magonis, corrupted into Port Mahon.

Eventually he landed his army at Genoa, but was defeated by Quinctilius Varro in a battle in Liguria, when he was severely wounded. Hannibal and Mago were recalled from Italy B.C. 203, and the younger brother died of his wounds on the voyage to Carthage, according to Livy. He was probably not more than thirty-two years of age. The name of this enterprising Carthaginian is immortalised in that of the harbour where he wintered, and in those of an English earl’s second title and of a Spanish dukedom.

During their occupation the Carthaginians had built three towns: the Portus Magonis; the town at the west end of the island, called Jamno, the modern Ciudadela; and one in the interior. In B.C. 121 Metellus arrived with his fleet, and the Balearic Islands passed under the dominion of Rome. For more than five hundred years the islands formed part of the Roman Empire, Minorca always sharing the fate of her larger and more important sister. These huge gaps in history leave everything to conjecture. They may have been a time of peace and prosperity, or they may have been a period of grinding oppression. The people were probably still the descendants of the prehistoric builders. Certainly no great event happened, or it would have been recorded. On the decay of Roman power, in the days of Honorius, the Balearic Islands are said to have been occupied for a time by the Vandals, from A.D. 426. It is assumed that the islands formed part of the kingdom of the Spanish Visigoths; but all that may have happened in that long period is buried in oblivion. We only know that Christianity had been introduced, and that at the Council of Toledo, celebrated in the year 675 A.D., there were bishops of the Balearic Isles, dating for at least two hundred years back, for Severo was Bishop of Minorca in 423.