The town of Artà in Majorca - The site of Ses Païsses

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Introduction

The archaeological site of Ses Païsses presents the ruins of one of the largest, best preserved and most representative villages talayotic time on the island of Majorca. This village is located near the town of Artà in the north of Mallorca, this area has many other Talayotic villages, which are less spectacular, as Sa Canova.

The buildings in the village, which dates back more than 3000 years (late Bronze Age) is spraid over ten centuries, the thirteenth or tenth century until the second century BC. In 123 BC came the Roman conquest of Mallorca, the village came into decline and was gradually abandoned and destroyed.

The site of Ses Païsses was classified as a historic monument in 1946 and, as such, protected.

Location

The site of Ses Païsses is about 400 meters southeast of the city of Artà. From the roundabout the Avinguda Costa i Llobera (name of the main road Ma-15 in Artà), near the railway, the town is accessed by a narrow road well reported, the Camino de Sa Corballa. Near the site there is a small parking area.

Talayotic The village lies on a low hill, from 120 to 125 meters high, in the middle of a grove of oak or holm oak (Quercus ilex) from this position, the village of Ses Païsses was easily visible from other villages, such as the village of Sos Sastres, 4 km as the crow flies.

Like other Talayotic villages Ses Païsses was located near a river, to provide for the water needs of the residents. Torrent de Ses Terretes a confluence of the Torrent des Revolts and the Torrent de Molinet, is about 50 meters south of the wall of the village. 250 meters south-west of the village is a source.

Visits

The village talayotic of Ses Païsses had an area of 10,800 m², oval (133 m from east to west and 103 m from north to south), surrounded by a perimeter wall of 374 m perimeter. The village is largely covered by holm oaks, olive and carob trees, making it difficult an overview of the site. However, we can distinguish two different groups of buildings: the first group, led by the central talaiot, consists of a series of houses and a room with the remains of three columns, the pillared hall. The second group to the west, consists of two houses in one apse available. At the entrance of the village is a monolith dedicated regional poet Miquel Costa i Llobera who was inspired by Ses Païsses to locate the place of his poem "The deixa del geni grec" (1900). A well-marked trail allows you to explore every corner of the site. 1. Stele Miquel Costa i Llobera 2. Door southeast - Main Entrance 3. Hypostyle room and horseshoe 4. Central talaiot 5. Door northwest 6. Houses in apse of the West Village 7. Quadrangular houses southern talaiot
The Enclosure Wall
The wall of the village of Ses Païsses is more recent than most domestic buildings in the village construction its date of construction is estimated in the range of 650-540 BC. The wall was built when conflict broke out between different clans. It is a cyclopean building 374 m in length, with an average thickness of 3.60 m and a maximum height of 3.50 m (the south entrance of the village). The base of the wall consists of huge boulders - some weighing about 8 tons - with smaller stones - now mostly dispersed - stacked above, inside the wall was lined with rows of small stones. It seems that there was input in the wall three doors. The main entrance was on the south-east (point 2 of the plan), and consisted of two vertical stone blocks with a third block placed on the first two, as a lintel. The door opens onto a long corridor of 4.3 m with a staircase on each side. There was a second input of comparable size, northwest (item 5 of the plan), but his header was gone. The third is more discreet, was south-west and gave access to a nearby source and the lintel also disappeared.
The Central Talayot
The central village talaiot Ses Païsses (point 4 of the plan) is considered the oldest building in the village: it was built around the beginning of the first millennium BC (about 900 or 800 BC). Originally, the talaiot have was the only building for probably a watchtower at the top of the hill with a view over the surrounding countryside. The talaiot is a tower in the shape of a truncated cone, with 12 m diameter at the base, the massive wall was 4.5 meters high. Inside the talaiot there was a staircase that gave access to a floor. At the center of talaiot stood a pillar that supported a ceiling of stone slabs that also formed the floor of the upper floor, this pillar has now disappeared. Over the following centuries other buildings were leaning against talaiot, these new buildings were used as dwellings, and talaiot could be used as a place for religious ceremonies or as a warehouse and distribution point for food, but not as a dwelling. A low passage, of approximately 0.75 m in height, connected the room talaiot to a room, now called "Hypostyle Hall", located northeast of talaiot. For reasons of conservation and security, site visitors are not allowed access to talaiot.
The Hypostyle Hall
The pillared hall adjacent to the central talaiot the east side and is connected by a passage in talaiot. The pillared hall was probably used for community purposes. This is a room of about 12 m by 8 m, with two parallel walls, one wall at a right angle and an end shaped rounded apse. This room is called "pillared" because of three free-standing columns, located in the middle of the room, and the other seven columns built into the walls, which had to bear the roof (from the ancient Greek hypostylos (ύπόστυλος) which means "supported by columns ").
The Horseshoe Shaped Room
Beside the pillared hall, and also attached to talaiot the southeast side, there is another room with an apse-shaped horseshoe. The room horseshoe (item 3 of the Plan) has been dated to the late period of the village (post-talayotic from 500 to 123 BC) by archaeologists Lilliu and Aramburu. The room horseshoe has an area of 132 m². Its walls are made of relatively small stones stacked in horizontal layers. Excavated in 1959 and 1960 are found on many homes with bone fragments, pottery and charcoal. A grave and iron tools have also been found, indicating that future use of the site.
Houses with Apse of the West
To the west of the village are two houses with apsidal end (point 6 of the plan). One of these houses has a thick wall, built with large stones, which encroaches on the wall beyond the village. The other walls of the house are built with small stones. The buildings are divided into three rooms with clay walls. One of the buildings was no longer inhabited after a fire, but served as a burial place from the fifth to the second century BC. Between these two buildings is the only street in the village of Ses Païsses discovery to date.
Quadrangular Habitations of the South
South of talaiot are two rectangular rooms (item 7 of the plan). In the first, which has an area of 25.7 m², you can see the base of the central pillar, a fireplace was discovered there. It is believed that this house was occupied from the fifth to the first century BC. It even found remains dating from Roman times, such as a lamp in the second half of the second century AD. The second housing, the surface area of 37.5 m², has two columns inside.
Archaeological Excavations
The first archaeological excavations were conducted from 1959 to 1963 in four campaigns under the supervision of the Italian archaeologist Giovanni Lilliu (1914-2012), to relate the Majorcan constructions with those of Sardinia (Sardinian nuraghi). His work focused on the excavation of the central part of the village, talaiot and all rooms attached to it which highlight the hypostyle hall and the shape of a horseshoe. For his work, Giovanni Lilliu was handed in November 2008, the Gold Medal of Artà. Thirty years later, in the 1990s, the work was taken over by the Majorcan Javier Aramburu archaeologist who discovered another building while searching other parts of the village. Each year since 2004, excavations are made. The current excavation area, southeast of the village, has uncovered a building shaped like a horseshoe, and near the entrance to a rectangular building on the south-east. Some remains found in Ses Païsses, such as ceramics and iron objects from other Mediterranean civilizations, have certainly been made by the Balearic slingers (foners), which, because of their prowess with the slingshot, were recruited as soldiers by the Carthaginians during the Punic Wars (264-146 BC), hundreds of them accompanied Hannibal and his elephants across the Alps in 218 BC.