Logbook · 9 places

Pirámides de Güímar

Güímar, Tenerife - Valle de Güímar, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 1 Nature · 2 Curiosities · 1 Historical milestones

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Pirámides de Güímar

Curiosity · Güímar, Tenerife - Valle de Güímar, Santa Cruz de Tenerife

Six stepped structures of volcanic stone laid without mortar, whose origin is a matter of controversy. The Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl studied them from 1991 and argued they were solar temples of an ancient civilisation predating the conquest, linking them to a supposed network of pre-Columbian maritime contacts between America and the Mediterranean. Against this interpretation, most archaeologists hold that they are majanos: piles of stone left over from clearing fields (for growing cochineal) during the 19th century, pointing out that a 1854 property deed makes no mention of them and that the first document to cite them dates from 1881. In 1998 the Parque Etnográfico Pirámides de Güímar opened to the public, funded by the Norwegian shipowner Fred Olsen, which promotes Heyerdahl's thesis and which part of the archaeological community regards as a tourist attraction with no historical basis.

Photo: Axel Cotón Gutiérrez (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What to see and do in Güímar