Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

tancas de piedra

English translation:

dry-stone wall

Added to glossary by Wendy Gosselin
May 5 17:22
13 days ago
26 viewers *
Spanish term

tancas de piedra

Spanish to English Art/Literary Architecture
Describing summers in Menorca:

Al atardecer no era raro que nos acercáramos a los monumentos prehistóricos, taulas y talayots que entre tancas de piedra suelta o escondidos entre la maleza pueblan la isla cargados de misterio.
Proposed translations (English)
3 +7 dry-stone wall
2 stone tancas

Discussion

Tomasso May 6:
low ( stone ) enclosure, ? Enclosing rock fence? I like Helenas's answer, dry stone wall to me takes the focus to modern landscaping. Low enclosing rock wall, assuming people would understand with no mortar? Helena should give her answer. Low surrounding rock fence, More technical term Cyclopean , is not commony known.
In Catalan, 'tancar' is the verb 'to close' and a 'tanca' is a fence.
Tomasso May 5:
Leave untranslated? To me dry stone wall, misses the point, the Tanca is a low wall surrounding a Taula.

Proposed translations

+7
19 mins
Selected

dry-stone wall

Tanca seems to be a wall or a fence, if stones are used, I'd go for wall:
https://tradukka.com/dictionary/es/ca/valla?hl=es

The Rough Guide to Mallorca & Menorca
google.es
https://books.google.es › books
https://books.google.es/books?id=JYzplrfVSroC&pg=PT243&lpg=P...
Phil Lee · 2010 · ‎Travel
...a dry-stone wall (tanca) protected every field — the island has no less than fifteen thousand kilometres of stone wall — and prevented the Tramuntana, the .

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Note added at 21 mins (2024-05-05 17:44:55 GMT)
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Una porción de terreno cultivable cercado por un muro de paret seca se llama una "tanca". Un tancat es un conjunto de tancas. Si el terreno no es cultivable, entonces se denomina "pleta".
https://www.artifexbalear.org/marger.htm
Peer comment(s):

agree patinba
10 mins
Thanks patinba :-)
agree Rick Larg
11 mins
Thanks Rick :-)
agree philgoddard
24 mins
Thanks phil :-)
agree Helena Chavarria
57 mins
Thank you Helena!
agree Peter Guest : I live there. I wrote the blog mentioned below nearly 30 years ago
2 hrs
Thanks Peter, that's a funny coincidence, and explains why you answer the sailing questions!
agree Andrew Bramhall
18 hrs
Thanks Andrew!
agree Tomasso : Pues, parece no hay duda. Costa Rica, against earthquakes, v shaped trench, big flat stones on outside, fill with small stones, corral at Orosis cayo muy poco tras los siglos.
1 day 6 hrs
Thanks Tomasso, very typical in Northern England and sounds very similar to me
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "thanks"
4 hrs

stone tancas

Seems to be special term, low wall around a taul. would leave untranslated. many monuments modern and from antiquitey have low walls around them,
Tanca seems to have a special meaning, or needs a footnote.

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Note added at 4 hrs (2024-05-05 21:54:23 GMT)
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tapia is a surrounding wall of mud brick topped with tejas of fired clay.

https://original-ufdc.uflib.ufl.edu/AA00096997/00541
Peer comment(s):

neutral Andrew Bramhall : Yes, but you can't use too many Spanish terms with a native English audience!
14 hrs
Low enclosing free stone fence, looking at Helenas's comment. Seems for a British ausdience Dry Stone wall would be perfect. term here across the pond nearer to China, the term sounds too modern.
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Reference comments

49 mins
Reference:

taules, tancas

https://windfornells.com/en/blog/megalitos-talaiots-taules/ "Taules
These were temple structures and are shaped like an enormous “T” made of gigantic rectangular stone slabs. The most remarkable are found at Torre Trencada, Talatí de Dalt -this one unique because of the slab diagonally supporting the upright stone – Torrellissá Nou, Trepucó, and the site at Torralba d’en Salord, whose enormous upright is buried to the depth of two metres.

This is necessarily exceedingly brief because there are hundreds of megaliths in Minorca and this is a Windsurf and Sailing Website, so I’m sure you’ll understand. Two last points of interest.

The Torre d’en Gaumés is the largest prehistoric village to be found in the Balearic Islands. It boasts three striking talaiots surrounded by a** defensive wall***, pillared naves and a taula whose cross-piece lies on the ground next to the upright. Nearby is a dolmen burial chamber, Ses Roques Llises. This village is found to the south of Alaior, between the village and beach at Son Bou, the longest on Minorca."

Taula, palabra corsicana, "mesa", italiano "tavola".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tanca#:~:text=“fence”).-,Noun...

Borrowed from Sardinian [Term?], from Catalan tanca (“fence”).

Noun
tanca f (plural tanche)



(Sardinia) an enclosed piece of land

foto tancas?? En Fraces, hablan de casas en circulo, mas bien son mrallas bajs....https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_d'en_Galmés#/media/Fichi...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_d'en_Galmés Dice alli...Les cercles
Le site comporte plusieurs ensembles de maisons cercles, mais ce sont celles situées au sud du site qui sont les plus remarquables. Situé à l'extrémité sud-ouest du site, l'un des mieux conservés est connu sous le nom de « cercle Cartailhac » en raison de la description qu'en a donnée Émile Cartailhac ; il est considéré depuis comme l'archétype de l'enceinte domestique post-talayotique1. Il comprend une salle hypostyle, un grand ensemble constitué d'une chambre précédée d'une cour intérieure, une vaste cour extérieure et un foyer. D'autres cercles ont été réutilisés et réaménagés durant la période almohade. Dans une maison, on a retrouvé un lot de céramiques complètes et six squelettes d'individus ayant subi une mort violente vers le iie siècle av. J.-C. À l'est de ce cercle, on peut voir un ensemble de trous creusés dans la roche, traditionnellement interprétés comme étant un système de collecte et de filtrage des eaux de pluie1.

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Note added at 21 hrs (2024-05-06 15:19:14 GMT)
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Maybe cyclopean?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclopean_masonry Cyclopean masonry is a type of stonework found in Mycenaean architecture, built with massive limestone boulders, roughly fitted together with minimal clearance between adjacent stones and with clay mortar or[1] no use of mortar. The boulders typically seem unworked, but some may have been worked roughly with a hammer and the gaps between boulders filled in with smaller chunks of limestone.

Catala...Els nurags de l'edat del bronze a Sardenya també van ser construïts amb tècnica ciclòpia. La cultura talaiòtica de les Illes Balears, o més concretament de les Gimnèsies (Mallorca i Menorca), amb els seus talaiots i navetes, també va utilitzar aquesta tècnica constructiva.[1] Algunes construccions que daten de l'època romana i són considerades ciclòpies es poden trobar, per exemple, a Tarragona (Catalunya), en una gran part de les muralles romanes. https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construcció_ciclòpia
Tmb https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultura_talaiòtica La cultura talaiòtica és l'etapa cultural que es desenvolupà a les Illes Balears - entenent aquestes com a Mallorca i Menorca - durant l'Edat del Bronze i l'Edat del Ferro. També s'han trobat restes d'aquesta cultura a illots de Mallorca com l'Illot des Porros[1][2] o a la cova de sa Font[3] i a cala Lledó de sa Dragonera.[4] A les Pitiüses de moment solament s'han documentat hàbitats del període naviforme.[5]

https://www.barcelo.com/pinandtravel/en/talaiots-menorca-tal...
Torralba d'en Salort is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful examples of the talaiots Menorca has to offer. Stretching across 4 kilometres, this is one of the largest towns where visitors can embrace the culture of Talayotic Menorca. Discover two talayots, a spectacular taula that stands at a towering 4 meters in height, a hypostyle hall, several prehistoric houses, a cyclopean wall and a medieval building.



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Note added at 21 hrs (2024-05-06 15:21:05 GMT)
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Talaiot, talaiots, Arabic feminine plurals??? Je ne sias, gobernador mas tarde de Basse Navaree, Guizipicoa, tenia titulo SAHIBIE, Don, Bali, mi Senhor, my lord. Familia Lacayo de Euskadi, Roma e Egipcio.
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1 day 43 mins
Reference:

Dry stone walls in Yorkshire

I'm not from Yorkshire but I enjoyed reading a series of who dunnit novels by Peter Robinson that were set in Yorkshire!

Dry stone walls are one of the Yorkshire Dales' most distinctive features, and are some of the oldest man-made landscape features.

It's believed there are over 5000 miles (8000 km) of dry stone walls in the Yorkshire Dales. Not all of them are in tip-top condition but most are well maintained.

One of the first questions any visitor asks is "why are they there"?

The very first dry stones walls were probably created centuries ago when early farmers were clearing the land for cultivation. Some walls are really thicker than might seem necessary, just because they were built in very stony areas. Most walls are built to mark field boundaries or mark land ownership, and limit movement by sheep and cows.

Tom Lord of Lower Winskill Farm, Langcliffe has over seven miles of dry-stone walls on his farm, some of which date back to the 13th century and are believed to have been built to deter wolves! When on a tour of his farm farm in Wensleydale, Adrian Thornton-Berry showed me some very straight walls rising up the hill near Swinithwaite and said they were built around 200 years ago by French prisoners of war taken from Napoleaon's army. Nearby are some large block foundations to a wall that dates back to the times of the Knights Templar. There's plenty of hidden history in those miles and miles of walls!

https://www.dalesdiscoveries.com/more-inspiration/70-dry-sto...
Peer comments on this reference comment:

agree Marie Wilson : I'm originally from Yorkshire and then other northern parts and it was the first thing that came to mind :-)
15 hrs
Hi, Marie! Where I live in Catalonia, there are also dry-stone walls. There's one literally across the road from my house.
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