Fissures on the landscape: the sandstone quarries, traces of the heritage landscape of Mallorca

Abstract

The sandstone quarries are the commonest quarries in Mallorca. However, they have been always unknown landscapes. This paper tries to offer a panoramic view of the sandstone quarries, tracking between different scales. First of all, the understanding of their territorial dimension on the island, proposing a new concept: the Quarries Territory, a landscape that allows the discovery of the quarries, only possible through the path that they offered, the differentiating aspect of each one. Afterwards, the memory and tradition that they have generated relate the elements of heritage which have emerged from them, so they are also part of cultural heritage and landscape of the island. They have become immobile transcribers of the landscape history that have generated, becoming true heritage archives of Mallorca. Finally, thinking in sandstone quarries as cultural landscapes will be obvious when the culture that generated them get back to appreciate the values described here. If this not happens, their future is predestined to disappear.