The Menorca Archaeological Project (MAP) received the 2024 Charles Harris Project Grant for their ongoing work at the site of Torre d’en Galmés in Menorca, Spain. MAP was established in 2020 as a project dedicated to the lesser-known histories of the island of Menorca, including the medieval Islamic period from the 10th to 13th centuries C.E. Since 2020, MAP’s team has been excavating a series of medieval houses at the site of Torre d’en Galmés. Although known for megalithic Iron Age houses, monuments, and ceremonial centers, the site was also settled from the 11th to 13th centuries as part of an influx of Muslim groups from Mallorca and mainland Iberia. These people set up an alquería or rural farming village at the site until their forced removal by the Kingdom of Aragon in 1287 C.E.

In 2024 with the generous support of ASOR and the Harris Grant, the MAP team focused on the excavation of SPU or Spatial Unit 7, which is a large medieval house complex. Measuring at over 200 square meters with at least four distinctive rooms and a central patio, the house has proven to be one of the largest rural examples yet encountered on Menorca. As part of our excavation campaign, the team discovered a wealth of information on the daily life of the Muslim medieval residents of Torre d’en Galmés, including consumptive patterns and spatial arrangements of the house that reflect trends seen on Mallorca and the mainland.

Over the course of four weeks, our team cleared the SPU 7 area of over 30 metric tons of stone, outlined architectural features and room boundaries to further our understanding of the complex’s shape, and excavated areas of the central patio for micro-environmental sampling. The team took paleobotanical and phytolith samples through out the complex to reconstruct work and cooking spaces of the house.

The highlight of the 2024 season came in the last days of excavation with the discovery of a preserved room in the northern section of the house structure. In 2023, the entrance to the area was thought to be the threshold of an outer door, but upon further excavation this past summer, we discovered a room with a clear roof collapse deposit and what we hope will be well-preserved stratigraphy underneath. We were able to recover intact roof tiles with mortar attached, as well as promising indications of material culture beneath. We will return to the space in 2025 to excavate and sample the space thoroughly.

The future of MAP is currently centered on the completion of the SPU 7 complex excavation, which is changing our understanding of Torre d’en Galmés, as well as medieval settlement and domestic complexity in the rural spaces of Menorca more generally. What we once thought were relatively simple, standalone dwellings repurposed from a long-abandoned Iron Age site, have turned into a complex arrangement of interrelated structures that showcase a large agricultural village with indications of urban planning and impressive family compounds. In 2025, we will return to complete our analyses of SPU 7 and will move to publication and museum exhibition of our findings on Menorca in subsequent years.

Learn more about the Menorca Archaeological Project (MAP) on their website or their Instagram!