Written in stone

Menorca's archaeological sites, ancient crafts and historic coastal trail offer a little-seen glimpse of early life on an island that has horizons far beyond its beautiful sea views

- Eddi Fiegel

"The goddess is approaching," my unofficial guide, Gonzalo, told me as an ogre-like thunderclap broke the silence in what had once been a stone circle. In the centre, two giant limestone slabs, hauled together to form a T-shape, towered over us. A few yards away, amid parched-looking scrubland dotted with wiry juniper trees, stood the base of an ancient watchtower, or talayot. As I looked across to the low-slung walls marking a series of dwellings arranged around a central courtyard, the stillness seemed almost haunted by the former inhabitants.

The Talayotic Village of Trepucó has often been described as 'the Stonehenge of the Balearics'. It's not hard to see why. Built sometime between 1000 and 700 BC, it sits barely a kilometre south of Mahón, the capital of Menorca, but it's a far cry from the unspoilt beaches and sandy coves for which the easternmost of Spain's Balearic Islands is better known.

On this warm, if thundery, early-June afternoon, any sun-seeking tourists were clearly elsewhere, no doubt enjoying the natural beauty of an island designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1993. I was glad to have the site more or less to myself. The exception was Gonzalo, a stocky, youngish chap in a baggy T-shirt and shorts, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in the site's small car park and was armed with fascinating but difficult-to-prove tales of the ancient villagers' rituals. (Pythagoras, the waxing and waning of the moon and the female menstrual cycle all loomed large in his theories.)