Latest Fieldnotes

Talati de Dalt is a gorgeous poblat quite close to the airport with loads of stuff to see – all the usual poblat features: caves, talaiot, cisterns, houses, etc. The houses here were really excellent with lots of rock cut details. This time, VERY Skara Brae. We climbed the talaiot and watched the planes come and go.

It was alive with birds here too; tons of finches, swifts, swallows and hoopoes. I found this site very, very peaceful, and sat and made a study of the taula which has its very own flying buttress.

After a busy day snorkelling at Binidali beach we took an early evening excursion out to see Trepuco (see pages 326 and 327 of TME) poblat on the southern outskirts of Mahón, Menorca’s capital where mayonnaise may have been invented in 1756 to commemorate a victory over the English who were holding a castle in Mahón – hence ‘mahonnaise’.... I digress.

The site at Trepuco is dominated by two gargantuan monuments – the mammoth talaiot tower and most sublime taula sanctuary. The talaiot was probably the biggest I saw on the island, about 8 metres tall and at least 12 metres in diameter, possibly more. I was a bit spooked when Moth started climbing it, but he took it slowly and was rewarded with great views. But the taula captivated me completely.

Glowing yellow in the evening sunlight and thin like rice paper, the great stone is carved on the front as if Canadian cheddar cut with a serrated knife. On top of this impossibly thin slab of something you’d put in yer butty, a bloody great grey horned block is somehow held aloft. I was in awe.

I should also mention the setting of this ancient cheesy wonder as it follows an approximate pattern of most taula sanctuaries.

The T stone usually stands roughly centrally in a horseshoe-shaped enclosed wall, built using giant stones. Many of these are tall pillars which appear to mark out chambers or spaces. The front, or approach end, always the only way in, is usually a very shallow concave forecourt with a clear entry point. Whatever happened in these ritual places, they were not public affairs. The space is intimate and the walls originally too tall to see over. These taula sanctuaries usually stand within just a few metres of a talaiot. And from the top of most talaiots you can see El Toro, Menorca’s centrally-placed sacred hill (now hijacked by Jesus, his mum and some nuns.)

All this is the case at Trepuco. We stayed here for some time so I could make some studies. It was sublime.

Not far from Naveta d’es Tudons is the poblat of Torre Trencada (see pages 323, 324 and 325 of TME) which was the first Menorcan prehistoric talaiotic settlement I had seen and my first taula. (We were to see many more!)

At Torre Trencada, as at most other bronze age poblats, you get your usual shopping list of:
- a talaiot (tower) or two which dominates the site, rather like a watchtower or uninhabitable broch
- some wrecked houses
- a wall surrounding the settlement
- a cave, usually enhanced megalithically in some way
- some kind of water storage feature, well or cistern
- a taula sanctuary, the ritual heart of the site
Torre Trencada is delightfully unrestored with shady olive trees growing up through the stones.

It was rough, unkempt and a haven for birds and butterflies. Rupert also saw a snake. We wished we’d had some food as someone had built a rather lovely megalithic picnic table in the shade of some olives.

As this was my first taula monument I was deeply impressed, although I would later discover the sanctuary it once stood in was pretty much gone entirely, leaving only the great T behind.

Torre Llafuda (see page 319 of TME) is a delightful poblat with all the usual features (talaiot, taula, caves, etc, but it’s in a helluva state. Badly wrecked with rubble all around the place, the taula sanctuary is hidden in a dip beneath some trees. It has two small but complete taulas still up, though one of them was supported by an ugly pillar of rubble.

You could get right close up to the neatest taula and admire the fantastic stone mortice and tenon joint used to keep the top of the T up.

As we stood on top of the wrecked talaiot we saw an Egyptian vulture, which was nice.

We could see Torre d’en Gaumes from the front porch of our villa, its three talaiot towers rising up on the horizon just about 2kms away. However, such is the state of Menorcan roads we had to drive miles to get to it. This is government operated site and has had money put in to it – areas roped off, nice concrete paths, wooden walkways, even toilets. This is a rare one for which you pay an entry fee. However, the young woman working in the ticket collection booth was very helpful and gave me a poster (featuring taulas, of course) which I admired on the wall for free. This woman, who had an unpronounceable name, would later help us find two amazing monuments within 500ms of Gaumes.

Gaumes is a very complex poblat monument which we didn’t have time enough to unravel. It comprises all the usual features and them some more. Although it didn’t have an intact taula to thrill me, it did have one or two other features which blew me away.

The first was to do with the taula. The capstone has at some point in antiquity been removed and inverted. The carved socket which the upright once slotted into now lies skywards like a watertrough or font.

The second was a fabulous system of water storage cisterns, great holes cut into the rock.

On such a dry island, fresh water must have been a premium commodity and the inhabitants at Gaumes collected and stored their water with particular flair. There were six or more tanks.

Thirdly, in one of the houses the roof structure was up. A roughly round space had a pillar in the middle from which long flat stones balanced and radiated out to the pillars in the walls like the spokes of a wheel.

Fourthly, a few intact ‘doorframes’. Moth said that for him, it somehow made the houses much more real.

Finally, the views, the views! Cor! From up here you can see perhaps half of the southern part of the island.

We wanted to try a beach over to the south west of the island, and see Son Catlar poblat (see pages 310 and 311 of TME) which was on the way.

Extensive and impressive though this complex is, it failed to light my fire in any way whatsoever. It was just too big and too ruined for me to make sense of.

Rupert summed it up in his diary. He wrote: ‘… a huge prehistoric village but it looked like a big pile of rocks, the only good thing was the wall, and even that was boring...’ Gah! Eleven-year-olds are notorious hard to please.

As the evening cooled off, we took the car down the long dusty track down to Calascoves, (see page 306 of TME) a bucolic rocky inlet of turquoise waters not far from where we were staying.

Carved into the rock faces in the cliffs, overlooking the crystal sea, are dozens and dozens of caves, probably hewn initially from existing fissures and naturally occurring caves and enhanced for tomb purposes. Some are up at quite a dizzying height. Made me wonder how the hell the masons got up there to do their work. The sea was alive with fish and crabs and things, boding well for future snorkelling.

At north west end of the island lies the wonderful Cala Morell caves complex (see pages 302 and 303 of TME).

Dozens of spacious rock cut chambers line a limestone ravine apparently used originally as tombs and maybe later as dwellings.

The craftsmanship involved in cutting the rock was extraordinary. Internal pillars, decorated doorways (similar to those I saw in Turkey and Cyprus) and raised platforms vied for our attention with drainage systems, water storage features and sockets for carpentry.

Brilliant!

Biniparraxtet (see page 301 of TME) is actually at the airport. It was moved from its original site to make way for a runway extension and has been lovingly restored.

Its cupboards, chambers, kennels and water storage features reminded Moth and me of Skara Brae. Although my son Rupert claims to find big old rocks ‘boring’, so many has he now seen that he was able to read this monument’s features without even having to look at the information board.

This is a really good site and well worth stopping off to see.

Ses Roques Lisses, which means ‘the smooth flat rocks’, is an open chamber formed by huge flat slabs of limestone, making roughly a double square 2ms x4ms. In common with the navetas and other Mediterranean sites, the entry stone has a doorway hole cut into it, just big enough for someone to squeeze through.

The slabs sit on their own platform of rubble kept in by a wall. It was once covered entirely with stones, like a cairn, I suppose.

We would NEVER have found this without expert help from the archaeology student/ticket collector at Torre d’en Gaumes who took us straight to it, clambering over stone walls and across a least two paddocks. She was thrilled to have met people like her with so much enthusiasm for the really old stuff – for Ses Roques Lisses predates the taulas and poblats by many, many centuries.

Lying almost lost and crumbling badly just 50ms away from Ses Roques Lisses is the remarkable Na Comerma taula sanctuary. It should NOT be confused with what Julian calls Sa Comerma de sa Garita on page 315 of TME. What Julian is referring to seems to us be part of the complex at Gaumes, whereas Na Comerma (or Sa Comerma) is a site away from Gaumes, independent in its own right.

It felt as if I’d been let in on local secret. I guess it is hardly ever visited. It would have been impossible to find without local knowledge and/or an extraordinarily detailed map. Though sizeable, so hidden by trees is it, that we didn’t see it until we were virtually upon it.

From a terrible higgledy-piggledy mess of masonry rises a tiny taula which by some miracle still has its topstone.

Its upstone is half buried in rubble. You could make out part of a wall which once enclosed the sanctuary, perhaps once as thick as the one at Torre Llisa Vell (see previous weblog.)

In addition, there were beautiful ruins of what I read to be houses, with flat dressed cross-beams still mounted on top of their supports.

Absolute magic.

And the day was made complete when we spotted a tortoise. We’d seen a few small ones playing ‘chicken’ on the roads, but this one was safe from becoming roadkill. They are a protected species now, their numbers having been cruelly depleted for the pet trade up until the late 20th century. Like this monument, they feel like ancient survivors.

Access Hard work! Steep climb, fairly rough & a little precarious in places. As the talaiot and the way to get to it is overgrown, I got lots of scratches – I was wearing shorts.... For full directions, see Sant Agusti Vell.

Visited 3 June 2005
The talaiot was a little ‘knocked about’ but I got some great views from its top, boosted by its hilltop location.

Views were especially good of some caves across a valley to the west(ish). I’ve so far been unable to find out anything specific about them, but to my eye they looked like a pretty typical Menorcan cave settlement and this area seems to be riuddled with them....

There is also what appears to be an entrance to a likely cave in the outcrop underneath the talaiot!

Roughly to the south/SSW I could see a couple of very clear talaiots on the horizon a km or 2 away. This was Sant Agusti Vell itself.

(There was yet another really trashed talaiot to the north too!)

Approximate long/lat coordinates only, as we were taken (in the end) to the site & Ses Roques Lisses by someone who knew where they were!

Access: A walk of a few hundred metres after parking in a ‘back entrance’ to Torre d’en Gaumes a few hundred metres south of the main entrance.

See Ses Roques Lisses. From there, we walked roughly south or SSW for another few hundred metres. Hidden on the far side of a fair-sized clump of tangly trees, you may be lucky enough to find the monument(s). Very sorry to not be able to be more helpful!

Visited 3 June 2005
Having asked for directions from the friendly ticket seller at Torre d’en Gaumes, I’d spent a good couple of hours looking for this site and Ses Roques Lisses during the afternoon, with no joy. Perhaps I was unlucky, but I don’t think either site is easy to find!

Fortunately, when I told her I hadn’t found them, the lovely ticket seller said she’d take me & Jane to them if we came back at closing time.

The site is a Taula sanctuary with a strange squat ‘T’ tucked in the corner. This may be another illustration of a taula ‘reconstruction’ diagram I’ve seen, showing that (at least some) taula sanctuaries may have had several smaller ‘T’s on pillars round the edges of the sanctuary.

It is also adjacent to a hypostyle-type arrangement of pillars and lintels.

Featured in The Megalithic European (TME) page 155.

Access: Entry charge. Carpark & good paths all around the complex. In places, the paths are concreted, but on steeper parts feature shallow steps.

The southern section (furthest from the carpark) is so ‘busy’ that you can’t reach all the buildings on the paths. It’s also a walk of a few km to cover the whole site.

To reach the site, take the 721 towards Alaior. Just to the west of Alaior, head south towards Son Bou (Julian says it’s signposted from here). After around 3km, take a turn to the left and you can’t miss it!

Visited 1 June 2005
A showcase site & stunning complex!!! I’d advise visiting early or late, as I bet it’s pretty busy with tourists most days, but I think it closes around 6 or 7pm.

Untill recently the Tumulus de Kercado was the oldest dated megalithic site in Europe, conservative carbon dating putting it at around 4800BCE. The single chamber is reached through a low passage which is clearly distinguishable from the chamber itself. This layout points to the tumulus being very early in the Breton passage graves sequence.
About 2000 years after its construction a stone circle was added surrounding the original tumulus, as if to preserve its importance in the, then, modern age. This reverence, and the fact that the tumulus sits at the highest point in the area (hence the huge water tower next door) leads one the believe that the Tumulus de Kercado was possible the most important site in Carnac for many centuries. The water tower is a useul reference, sticking up above the more recent trees. It shows that in Neolthic times and beyond the tumulus would have been clearly visible from all over the Carnac region.
The tumulus is in the grounds of manor house and in private care. A small child or an honestly box will charge you about a euro for the pleasure of entrance but if you visit in the early morning you will almost certainly have the place pretty much to yourself, even in high season. However if you visit in the afternoon you will have the advantage of being able to pop into the creperie to pancake yourself up for the next site.

Do you know the way to Barnenez?
I’ve never been so
I may go wrong and lose my way
Do you know the way to Barnenez?
I’m going there to find a great big cairn in Barnenez
Allee couverts and some dolmens
See a whole bunch if you’ve got a car
In an hour, maybe two, you’ll get quite far
Don’t go too fast or they’ll quickly pass
And all the stones are lying there amid the gorse for you to find
I’ve got lots of photos from Barnenez
Wo oh oh-oh, oh-oh oh-oh
Can’t wait to get back to Barnenez
Wo oh oh-oh, oh-oh oh-oh
Do you know the way to Barnenez?

Côtes du Nord on a wild, wet Wednesday. Sane people do not go out in weather such as we experienced that day: grey skies and steady rain coming in at a slant with the occasional hailstorm. Sane people especially do not take expensive digital SLR cameras outside in these conditions. Welcome to the madhouse. Welcome to Barnenez, just 40 miles west from our cottage up on the north coast of Brittany.

Barnenez will make you gasp in wonder.

It’s so big and grand, this one has a visitor centre and mighty glad of it we were, too, as a shelter from the storm. 75metres long and with twelve burial chambers within its stony step-pyramid mound this is a beast and reminded me strongly of an out-size Camster grey cairn combined with Egypt’s Saqqara pyramid.

During its excavation and reconstruction, a huge chunk was left missing deliberately to expose the manner of construction.

Four of the burial chambers are open to visitors the others are walled up. Each chamber has a different manner of construction – corbelled vaulting, dolmen-type chamber, side slabs only, etc. Inside the visitor centre are some of the carved, decorated stones found within the cairn which are very intriguing – one looks like a sheaf of corn. There are also some cracking photographs of the cairn before, during and after its excavation and examples of the finds – beads, pottery, axes – discovered there.

We drove back east from Barnenez towards Lannion – there are lots of sites to see round here including many alleé couverts and menhirs.

Featured in The Megalithic European (TME) page 165.

Access: Good paths to the cemetery, which isn’t far from the carpark. Once among the graves there are no paths but nice smooth grass. The site is on a very distinct slope, so may be quite ‘hard work’ for some people to get back to the top from the bottom!

Lindholm Høje is in the northern suberbs of Aalborg. The route Julian gives in TME looks a little longer than a more direct route, but having started to try to find my own way, I think he may have recommended it because it’s simpler & doesn’t get you ‘caught up’ in more complicated bits of Aalborg.

Leave the E45 at junction 21 and head towards Aabybro on the 11. It is pretty well signposted from the 11, but you need to take a left (south) at Hvorup. Continue along this road (Gamel Hvorupvej) for less than 2km, turning right onto Vendilavej where you will find the carpark for the site.

Visited 6 April 2006
I was expecting quite a lot from Lindholm Høje and wasn’t disappointed! A huge selection of about 700 graves probably ranging from the bronze-age to around 1000ce.

The oldest graves are the triangular settings (for males) and the oval or rectangular (for women) and are mainly found towards the top of the hill. Spread over the hillside there are also 140 later Viking ship-settings and overall, the variety is fascinating.

In TME, Julian recommends the museum & coffee-shop, but unfortunately when I visited, the museum was shut. The coffee-shop was open, but I had a lot more to see today...!

A spectacular place though!

Access: A very short walk of a few metres from the road.

Ringlehøj i Snave Skov langdysse is on Langeland. Cross the bridge to Langeland and travel just over 2.5km along the 9. Take a left turn (north) onto the 305 towards Tullebølle, Tranekær and Lohals.

Travel along the 305, passing Bjerrebygaard and going through Tullebølle to Frellesvig. I estimate this is just over 5km from the junction with the 9. Take the left turn (NW) to Frellesvig and then left again (west) to head for the forestry.

At first the trees are only on your left (south), but about 100m after they are on both sides, you should find the monument through the trees on your left – I think there’s a sign.

7 April 2006
An impressive but badly damaged monument, it still has quite a few of its kerbstones, but the chamber stones are badly deranged.

The remaining mound is pretty long (60 metres), but looks as if its height has been drastically reduced and its profile has become blended into the ridge it seems to be built on.

Well worth a visit on a sunny day – a peaceful and relaxing spot. I reckon it’d be pretty drab & depressing in bad weather though!

It’s 32 feet tall, damnit!

Access: Walk of something like 50 metres gently uphill across (ploughed when we visited) field.

Very near Dyssekammer i Herslev – on the west of the 305 about 500 metres further south. I think there was a signpost and ‘official’ parking place but can’t quite remember. If not, it was certainly easy to park on the same side of the road as the monument.

Visited 7 April 2006
A bit of a showcase site this one! And it deserves it because it’s beautiful – not perfectly preserved by any means, but very nice.

A very short passage (nowadays anyway) and a long low accessible chamber set in a pretty dramatic steep mound. Assuming that it was originally completely covered by its mound, this may have been even larger.

Approximate long/lat coordinates, as I couldn’t see the site among the trees on the aerial photomap. Shouldn’t be too far out though and is on a waymarked path through woods.

Access: A pleasant walk of 0.5-0.75km through woodland from carpark.

We took the 305 south across Langeland as far as Lindelse, taking a left (east) to Hennetved about halfway through the village. As the road enters Hennetved, you can bear right or left – take the left (east) and after around 100 metres, take another left (onto Kågårdsvej).

Follow this for around 2.5km and turn right (south) towards the woods and into the carpark in the woods.

Check out the info boards for the colour-coded waymarked paths and if you’re as lucky as we were, there may even be leaflets with a map. Follow the paths to the monument in the SE of the woods.

Visited 7 April 2006
In a tiny glade sits a (fairly) tiny bronze-age stone boat setting of low stones. It’s not that spectacular, but there aren’t actually all that many skibssætnings around.

As a result, although not nearly as spectacular as Glavendrup on Fyn, this place is worth searching out if you have time. Very pretty with the sun through the trees dappling the stones.

Access: Carpark right next to the monument.

Hohøj is at Mariager, near Hørbo, which is about halfway between Århus and Aalborg. We actually went here from Tustrup, but from the E45, I’d say you need to get off at junction 36 to avoid having to go through the town and simply follow the 555 to Mariager.

Once on the 555 and heading east, keep an eye out just past Katbjerg, as you will be passing the Katbjerg complex – don’t miss it, as I thought Kongehøjen ved Voldstedlund was one of the best 3 or 4 sites we saw!

Continue east and you will find that after about 3.5km, the road turns left (north) towards Mariager, and after about 500m enters some trees. Soon after these trees, take a right at the roundabout onto Klostergade. If you miss this, it gets complicated – we did, so we know!

Klostergade meanders into the town, and you could probably take a shortcut to the right if you had a good map. We didn’t however, so I’m going to send you the way we went, as we know it works. At a distinct bend right, you will pass Kirkegaden – you need to take the next left (in fact it may feel like just following the same road) onto Kirkegade.

At the end of Kirkegade, turn right onto Teglgade and then right again almost straight away onto Torvet which becomes Fuglesangsgade and then Havndalvej, climbing the hill. Follow this for a little over 1.5km, taking a right onto HohøjSkovvej as you enter trees. The carpark and Hohøj are off this to the right after about 0.5km.

Visited 4 April 2006
Blimey, it’s big!!!! The largest høj in Denmark is 12 metres high and 72 metres across at the base. They’re just numbers though – take a look at the picture of Jane standing at the top to get a real idea of it. It feels considerably ‘more Silbury than West Kennett’! (Of course, it’s still nowhere near as big as Silbury.)

Other than just the impressiveness in terms of size, there’s only really one other attraction to Hohøj – the views, which are stunning. Unfortunately, I found it impossible to really capture them in photos, so you’ll just have to go and see for yourself....

The little seaside town of St Pierre Quiberon is home to two fabulous monuments: the St Pierre alignments, which nestle comfortably like a park in the urban setting and within a couple of hundred metres of these alignments is the WONDERFUL Kerbourgnec cromlech.

St Pierre Quiberon town felt very like my home town of Stratford on Avon, satisfied with itself, charming and much-loved by visitors Indeed, if you transported all the stones from West Kennet Avenue to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre gardens, this gives you an idea of the feeling emanating from this monument. The three or four rows of stones (23 in total) were very Avebury-like in size and shape.

Like this one a lot.

A few hundred metres west of Le Tribunal, up a bit on a rise lies the charming but a bit crumbly allee couverte of La Four Sarrazin

It had one or two underwhelming cup marks on it, but no intriguing carvings of swirls or zigzags, ‘breasts’ or chevrons. From up here there are some magical views back over the heath, with the tallest stones of Chateau Bû poking up from above the gorse.

Within shouting distance from La Croix de St Pierre cairn (Le Dolmen West) rather than spitting distance, is Le Tribunal cromlech. This wide horseshoe of zebra-stripey stones swings around from the south of the path. Each stone is so carefully chosen and positioned they each invite special consideration.

Having recently seen all the crazy carved stones at Gavrinis a couple of days before, it occurred to me that the builders of this site, instead of laboriously carving all those motifs into the rock, instead went out and sought stones which already had a natural decoration.

The position of this arc of stones, within metres of the graves of revered ancestors and with a name hinting at tribal law, it felt like a very important meeting place within the Saint-Just complex. But this isn’t the end of the affair. keep going west and there are still more monuments to discover!