Tejas pintadas

Museums | Llucmajor

The presence of painted tiles in the eaves is typical in Mallorca rural houses. Your background are medieval and the oldest part of Mallorca dates from the s. Xll. The function of the decorated eaves is a protective symbol of the roots and their inhabitants and in this case the eaves of the cloister was decorated with painted tiles whose inscrpition possibly represented a biblical, poetic or even profane text related to the convente. Once all the decorated tiles have been recovered, this text could serve as a basis for a reading of the same. The part of the tile that was hidden from the view had no preparation, and the symbols, signs or acronyms that can be seen in them were painted directly on it with red orcher (iron oxide). These signs consist, in a number and below a letter, uppercase or lowercase always inverted. It was assumed that they were codes to order the text when placing them. In this way the piece of decorated tile was visible, while the unpainted piece was hidden in the roof. The tiles have uniform measurements of 5cm in length, 24 cm in their larger opening and 16cm in their smaller opening. The restorción has made possible the recovery of many elements, previously beacuse of the dirt that impregnated the tiles and prevented their reading