Menorca’s massive T-shaped stone towers, which rise more than 5m high, gave rise to the legend that they were built 2,500 years ago by giants.
I’d come to Menorca to hike the famous Cam de Cavalls coastal path and swim in its bright blue waters. I knew nothing about the island’s rich archaeological heritage when I arrived, but it was everywhere I looked.
Menorca has one of the world’s highest concentrations of prehistoric sites (a number of which are being considered for inclusion on Unesco’s World Heritage list in 2023), and there were megalithic stone monuments standing at road intersections and in green fields where black Menorqun horses grazed.
As I walked, I came across massive T-shaped structures known as “taulas” (tables). They drew my attention right away because they were taller than a person and made of massive stone slabs that glowed in the bright Spanish sun. When I discovered that these tables had inspired legends about giants living on the island, I began to wonder who built them, how they were made, and what they were used for.
To learn more about the stones, I spoke with archaeologists Cristina Bravo and Irene Riudavets. They met on a dig, co-founded Nurarq (a company dedicated to promoting Menorca’s cultural heritage), and now divide their time between archaeological research and tour guiding. The taulas, which are only found on Menorca, were built around 2,500 years ago by the mysterious Talayotic civilisation, a prehistoric people who settled on the island during the Bronze Age, according to Riudavets.
No one in the past could understand who could have built the taulas because it seems impossible. That’s why we have the legends that the taulas are tables for giants
“No one could ever figure out who built the taulas because it seems impossible,” Bravo explained. “That’s why we have legends that the taulas are giants’ tables.”
She explained that the two boulders that make up the taula can be up to 5m tall and 13 tonnes in weight. The vertical base was a large slab, and the top of the “table” was formed by balancing the second “capital stone” across it.
According to Bravo, the Talayotic people transported the massive stones using tree trunks, building dirt mounds as scaffolding as they hoisted them into place. They didn’t use mortar or binding materials, instead employing a technique known as “cyclopean technique.” which translates to stacking dry stones together. “Even the technical term for archaeology mentions giants,” Riudavets said, and as she spoke, I imagined one-eyed monsters slotting massive rocks together.
I asked her why she was so taken with this culture. “Because, despite being on a small island surrounded by other Mediterranean cultures, the Talayotic people maintained their own strong identity and created completely new forms of buildings… that are monumental and unique,” she explained.
What I learned about the Talayotic culture from archaeologists only piqued my interest. These people occupied only two Balearic Islands (Menorca and Mallorca) and appeared uninterested in expansionism at a time when the Greeks and Carthaginians were busy colonising everything they could, including nearby Ibiza.
They were also unusual in that, despite living so close to the sea, they did not eat fish, according to Bravo. And, despite learning about the potter’s wheel from other cultures (the wheel was widely used by other Mediterranean cultures at the time), they chose to continue making pottery by hand.
They also constructed ancient “skyscrapers” – dome-shaped watch towers known as talayots that could reach up to 12m in height – and built burial chambers with views of the sea. However, much about them is unknown, including the precise purpose of the taulas, the structures that distinguish this civilisation.
One reason we know so little is that the Talayotic people did not leave written records. However, we know that their warriors were renowned as the deadliest slingshot warriors in the Mediterranean, thanks to an ancient Greek historian named Diodorus Siculus, who wrote about them in his epic 40-volume Bibliotheca Historica between 60 and 30 BCE. “Their mothers were the ones training them, placing a loaf of bread on top of a branch… they couldn’t eat that day until they were able to hit it with a stone,” Bravo explained. “They became very precise, very quickly” as a result of this motivation.
These warriors were occasionally hired as mercenaries; the Carthaginians hired them to fight against the Greeks. However, while Diodorus records this, as well as the fact that they spent their wages on wine and women, his writings provide no insight into the taula mystery.
I stopped at Binissafullet, a Talayotic settlement in the island’s south-east that is right alongside the main road, one day as I cycled to my favourite swimming cove. I’d cycled past almost every day of my trip and noticed how the sun illuminated the taula at different times of day, changing its colour from honey to golden. This is one of seven taulas that remain on the island, but we know there were originally at least 32, if not more, and they were used for religious purposes. (“All archaeologists agree because god statues, altars, and other objects only related to ritual purposes have been excavated near taulas,” Riduavets explained.) Each Talayotic village had at least one horseshoe-shaped temple or sanctuary, with the taula in the centre. “Many people believe that [the taula] were open air, but our excavations revealed that these sanctuaries were enclosed. The ceilings were constructed from rubble, branches, and compacted clay “Riudavets elaborated.
She and Bravo have fully excavated one of these sanctuaries near the island’s capital, Mahón, in the island’s south, and they’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the purpose of taulas. “”We started thinking about the symbolism,” Bravo explained. “What was the T-shape for? Is there a symbolic function to it? Or was it merely a structural function?”
While it was previously thought that the T-shape represented Tanit, a Carthaginian goddess adopted by the Talayotic people, this hypothesis has fallen out of favour with modern researchers. Riudavets published a paper in 2020 outlining a new theory: she and her colleagues believe it may represent a closed door to the world of the gods, with the massive vertical slab blocking what would be the doorway and indicating that humans cannot pass through. “However, gods can pass through it and be present with you at the rituals held in the sanctuary,” Bravo explained.