Es Galliner de Madona, Menorca

The hypostyle hall of the Gallinero de Madona is a Spanish prehistoric construction, corresponding to the Talayotic period and raised with cyclopean technique. It is located in the municipality of San Cristóbal, in Menorca, Balearic Islands.

It has a semicircular floor plan with a straight façade, and rests on the rock on one of its sides. The façade, oriented to the northwest, preserves the original access door to the building, with a monolithic lintel, nowadays closed. Access to the interior of the building is currently through an old collapse of the structure, in the southeast area.

Inside there are five columns and nine pilasters of Mediterranean type. These columns are built with large stones on top of each other. They have a narrow base, but their width increases as the column rises towards the ceiling. The upper part is very wide in order to support the huge stone slabs that form the roof, while the base is narrow in order to have the maximum useful space inside the building.

The exterior wall has a very regular face. Above this construction we can see the remains of another building or perhaps of a second floor of the same structure. The construction has a length of 16.40 meters and a width of 9.25 meters.

Archaeological excavations have never been carried out, so neither the function nor the chronology of the building is known. It has been reused for centuries as a stable or henhouse: hence its current name. Francisco Camps Mercadal, in 1897, wrote that the farmers had created a new access by taking advantage of a collapse of the roof.

Access to this monument is currently restricted, as a massive influx of visitors could endanger its stability. To visit it, it is recommended that you first contact the Heritage Service of the Island Council of Menorca. It can be accessed from San Cristóbal, along the Malagarba-Binigaus Nuevo road, which leaves from the side of the cemetery.

It is one of the 32 Menorcan prehistoric sites that are presented to the candidacy of Talayotic Menorca as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.