Reconstructing naval and shipping connections through ceramic analysis from Isla del Rey, Menorca, Spain

Summary

Isla del Rey is a small off-shore islet, located on the Spanish Balearic Island of Menorca. The island is well known for a British Naval Hospital, constructed over multiple periods of British occupation in the 18th century. The hospital was used for 250 years by the British, French and Spanish, and abandoned in the second half of the 20th century. In 2013, the Boston University Field School in Archaeology and Heritage Management began investigating the building, which had not been previously explored archaeologically. The material found showed the tight links of Menorca with other parts of Europe, from the Mediterranean to the Western Atlantic. Pottery from Italy, England and Spain arrived to Menorca by ship. It was used on site and imitated locally. Because pottery factories often imitated each other, it is difficult to asses the provenience of some pieces, except through additional analyses such as Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) that allow scholars to pair ceramics with clay source locations. In this poster we will present recent findings at Isla del Rey including a discussion of the pottery, its link to other countries, and the results of the NAA analysis conducted on so-called Ligurian pottery.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17126