Stone - Stone is to Pantescans as snow is to Eskimos. The islanders have been stacking stones for over 5,000 years and the 'muro alto' or high wall of the Neolithic village near Mursia (picture above) is still a standing witness of their craftsmanship. It's estimated that there are about 8,000km of stone walls on Pantelleria. Logically, the Pantescan dialect holds a wide variety of words for stone. A tartisa for example, is a little stone or a pebble; a ciampeddra a flat stone, used to fill narrow spaces when constructing the vaulted roof of a damuso and also applied in a very popular game for children. A mazzacàni, literally translated as 'dog killer', is round middle sized stone, and a strùmmulu is a irregularly shaped, useless stone. Strangely enough, the Pantescans also imported stone from other islands, like the cantùni, a boulder from Favignana and the balàta di Màuta, a slab of calcareous stone, coming from Malta.
Monday 12 May 2008
Pietra
Stone - Stone is to Pantescans as snow is to Eskimos. The islanders have been stacking stones for over 5,000 years and the 'muro alto' or high wall of the Neolithic village near Mursia (picture above) is still a standing witness of their craftsmanship. It's estimated that there are about 8,000km of stone walls on Pantelleria. Logically, the Pantescan dialect holds a wide variety of words for stone. A tartisa for example, is a little stone or a pebble; a ciampeddra a flat stone, used to fill narrow spaces when constructing the vaulted roof of a damuso and also applied in a very popular game for children. A mazzacàni, literally translated as 'dog killer', is round middle sized stone, and a strùmmulu is a irregularly shaped, useless stone. Strangely enough, the Pantescans also imported stone from other islands, like the cantùni, a boulder from Favignana and the balàta di Màuta, a slab of calcareous stone, coming from Malta.
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3 comments:
It's true that the stone is to the local inhabitants what snow is to eskimos. It's a great attraction, the way they have been able to use it throughout the centuries so as to create an immense geometrical variety of forms. And not to mention the colours which the stone possesses. Beautiful. I love it so much that for a while I attended a course where they tought me how to work with it. It worked so that now I can not only admire it but also try to do something with it at the house I own on the island.
Hello from Mallorca,an island with a lot of dry stone heritage as Pantelleria has.I'm very interested on those walls:have you got some more pictures?Are there some people workin' with stones or is it somethin' from the past?I invite you to have a look at
www.arrelsdepedra.com
so you can see a little bit of Mallorca's stone work
thanks a lot!
Nice blog.I'm from Mallorca and I work with stone too.I'd like to see more pictures from Pantelleria's stone walls,very interesting.We ha ve here lots of stone work too,have a look at
www.arrelsdepedra.com
thanks a lot
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