Things that speak

A production by la Perifèrica produccions in co-production with IB3 / Televisió de les Illes Balears, with the collaboration of ICIB/ Institut d’Indústries Culturals de les Illes Balears, Consell de Mallorca and with the support of the Fundació Turisme Responsable de Mallorca/Mallorca Film Comission, Ajuntament de Montuïri, Museu Arqueològic de Son Fornés

Synopsi

Fifty years after the first excavation (1975), the prehistoric site of Son Fornés in Montuïri (Mallorca) continues to raise questions for archaeologists. The past is not closed; it is open. The results of the excavations reveal that beneath the wild olive trees and scrubland lie two thousand years of chronologically sequenced history.

The archaeological site and its themed museum – the only one of its kind on the island – stand as a testament to a tireless team which, despite the work already carried out, recognises that many of the questions raised by each excavation remain unanswered. Vicenç Lull was a young history student about to complete his degree when, in 1975, he excavated what is now the largest talaiot on Mallorca. Cristina Rihuete —who joined the team in 1988 and is now director of the site’s museum and research centre— knows that true archaeology must let the artefacts speak for themselves.

“Son Fornés has something that archaeological sites do not have,
namely its span across time.” Vicenç Llull

In the mid-1970s, it was Josep Sanz, a teacher at the state school in Montuïri, who alerted the archaeologist Vicenç Lull to the existence of Talayotic remains in the municipality. Excavations began in 1975. Fifty years on, an area of around 3,000 m² has been excavated, representing less than a quarter of the site’s total area. The research carried out has documented the history of various communities that settled in and frequented the site some three thousand years ago, from the Talayotic period through to the Andalusian period.

In parallel with the new excavation (all archaeological campaigns carried out have been conducted under the scientific direction of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, through the Mediterranean Social Archaeoecology Research Group ASOME-UAB, led by Vicenç Lull himself), the team is working on the museum exhibition for the new research centre: the Son Fornés Archaeological Park. Renovation work on the old houses on the site’s estate is nearing completion.

An ode to archaeology, to dialogue with objects, to discoveries, to the legacy of things that do not lie. Because objects speak.