SERVAR ELS OBLIDATS (The Forgotten babies)

In Menorca, the word servar (cradling) means ‘to cradle an infant in one’s arms’. Mothers carefully cradle babies to breastfeed them or get them to sleep. It is thanks to these acts of care that humanity has survived. 

Pregnancy and childbirth, as well as weaning, were delicate times in the Talayotic period, and many mothers and babies did not survive them. Other women’s experiences were crucial to ensure their survival. Talayotic women knew about the healing properties of some of the plants around them, like the mastic tree and its oil. 

In addition, artefacts tell us a lot about infancy, especially just after birth, and childcare in the Talayotic period. They include bottles and amulets, which protected the babies against evil spirits, and even small ceramic recipients, used as toys. 

Cornia Nou’s village is exceptional in that it was a place for living used as a grave for various infant burials. Overlooked by one of the biggest talayots on the island, measuring over ten metres high, other monumental buildings were used as spaces for work and storage between 1100 and 600 BCE, at which point they were abandoned. From the fifth century BCE onwards, infants of different ages were buried among the ruins at the foot of the talayot, sometimes in ceramic urns.  The ritual of burying infants at Cornia Nou continued until the second century CE. This is the latest manifestation of Talayotic Culture, centuries after the Roman conquest of Menorca.