DISCOVERING THE HISTORY OF BEGUES WITH MONTSE

Today, The Grandma has spent a special day with her friend Montse in Begues, a beautiful town near in El Baix Llobregat, Barcelona.

Montse and The Grandma have visited some stone structures like La Cabana de Pedra de Begues and El Pou de Glaç, and they have tasted the local beer, a homage to the Neolithic past of the town.

Dry stone, sometimes called drystack or drystane, is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together.

Dry stone structures are stable because of their construction method, which is characterized by the presence of a load-bearing façade of carefully selected interlocking stones.

Dry stone construction is best known in the context of stone walls, traditionally used for the boundaries of fields and churchyards, or as retaining walls for terracing, but dry stone sculptures, buildings, bridges, and other structures also exist. The term tends not to be used for the many historic styles which used precisely-shaped stone, but did not use mortar, for example the Greek temple and Inca architecture.

More information: 'El Pou de Glaç' of Begues, The Importance of Ice

The art of dry stone walling was inscribed in 2018 on the UNESCO representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, for dry stone walls in countries such as France, Greece, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Switzerland and Catalonia.

Some dry stone wall constructions in north-west Europe have been dated back to the Neolithic Age. In County Mayo, Ireland, an entire field system made from dry stone walls, since covered in peat, have been carbon-dated to 3800 BC.

In Belize, the Mayan ruins at Lubaantun illustrate use of dry stone construction in architecture of the 8th and 9th centuries AD.

Great Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe, Africa, is an acropolis-like large city complex of immense importance, constructed in dry stone from the 11th to the 15th centuries AD. It is the largest of structures of similar construction throughout the area.

The cyclopean walls of the acropolis of Mycenae, Greece, have been dated to 1350 BC and those of Tiryns slightly earlier.

The style and method of construction of a wall will vary, depending on the type of stone available, its intended use and local tradition. 

Most older walls are constructed from stones and boulders cleared from the fields during preparation for agriculture (field stones) but many also from stone quarried nearby. 

For modern walls, quarried stone is almost always used. The type of wall built will depend on the nature of the stones available.

More information: Catalunya

Stone Age. Bronze Age. Iron Age.
We define entire epics of humanity by the technology they use.

Reed Hastings