The pyramids of Güímar: what we know and what is still a mystery
On the east coast of Tenerife, in the Valle de Güímar, stand stepped structures built of black volcanic stone. Locals and the park itself call them "pyramids", and for decades people have argued about what they really are: ancient temples, as the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl believed, or the stone piles of a 19th-century farming estate. The good news is that by now there are quite a few measurements and excavation results to go on. The even better news is that one question is still open, and it is the more interesting one.
What these pyramids are
Today the park shows six stepped pyramids, astronomically aligned, along with their carefully cut stones and steps. Archaeologists from the Universidad de La Laguna (ULL) described, at a site called Chacona, two groups of stone piles on two low ridges, one of two and one of four, plus one more in the hollow between them. The site sits on the lava field of the Eslora volcano.
The specialist literature calls them "morras": the farmer cleared the stones from his fields and carried them to the barren, rocky patches. A morra is typically stepped, more carefully built and taller than a simple pile of stones, and according to the archaeologists some people today call it a pyramid because it looks like one, because they attribute a magical or religious meaning to it, or because it draws tourists. Similar structures exist on other islands: on La Palma the finest ones stand in El Paso.
Heyerdahl and the temple theory
Thor Heyerdahl, who in 1947 set out on the Kon-Tiki raft to prove that Polynesia could also have been settled from South America, turned his attention to the pyramids of Güímar in 1990. He believed they were sun-worship temples, traces of ancient civilisations from before the discovery of America, with a ceremonial and religious meaning. He never established their age or who built them, though. In 1994 he moved to Tenerife, and in 1998 he founded the park to protect the pyramids from a building development plan. He died on 18 April 2002 in Colla Micheri, Italy.
What the excavation found
In November 1990 it was Heyerdahl himself who approached the archaeologists of the Universidad de La Laguna about joint research. Two specialists from the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo scanned the ground with ground-penetrating radar: they found no cavity of any kind inside the stone piles. The archaeologists dug eight trenches of 25 square metres each, and this is what they found:
An official seal from 1848 in one of the layers, in other words an object with an exact date.
The two main pyramids were built on top of this layer, not on the bedrock.
Under one of the pyramids, on the rock, lay a cooking pot made in a pottery workshop in San Andrés.
Not a single prehistoric potsherd, and none that could be dated with certainty to before the 19th century.
In the 16th century the friar Alonso de Espinosa talked with elderly Guanches in the Valle de Güímar, and he does not mention these structures. The archaeologists' conclusion: the stone piles were built in the 19th century, and the estate is first described in 1865. The 1854 deed of sale does not yet mention the structures; a later document does. The researchers add that this does not make the pyramids any less valuable: they are monuments of great ethnographic value.
According to the archaeologists, incidentally, Heyerdahl broke their joint agreement when, while the research was under way, he spoke publicly about a ceremonial purpose. The archaeoastronomy group of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) holds that the stone piles are part of a mid-19th-century farming estate, perhaps for growing cochineal (cochinilla). We wrote about the Canary golden age of cochineal in our Lanzarote article.
The mystery that remains: the solstice
Here comes the twist. In June 1991 the IAC confirmed that the main complex faces the "double sunset" of the summer solstice and the sunrise of the winter solstice. A double sunset means the sun sinks behind a mountain peak, briefly reappears and then disappears for good. This was the first project of the IAC's archaeoastronomy group, and they also suggested that the builders used the Castilian yard (vara castellana) as their unit of length.
If the pyramids are nothing more than farm stone piles, the solstice alignment should not be there. The Diario de Avisos summed it up like this: it is the "loose end". According to the science column of the Universidad de La Laguna, the astronomical alignment is beyond dispute, but on its own it does not make a structure any older.
In 2005 Aparicio and Esteban, researchers at the IAC and the ULL, brought the evidence together under the title "Las Pirámides de Güímar: mito y realidad". The history of the estate offers one possible explanation: it is a documented fact that its owner, Antonio Díaz Flores, who had held the land since 1854, was a Freemason. Whether this has anything to do with the alignment is a hypothesis, not a finding, and the idea changes neither the date nor the purpose. Nor is there full agreement on how precise the alignment is: according to the mathematician J. Barrios García, the wall points two degrees further east, towards the Volcán de la Arena.
What lies beneath the pyramids
Some of it really is ancient. Under Pyramid 1 runs a lava tube, the Cueva Chacona, and according to the park it holds Guanche remains that carbon-14 dating places between the years 680 and 1020. According to the archaeologists, the cave is an Aboriginal site, but its entrance was heavily altered in historical times. An important distinction: that date refers to the cave, not to the pyramids. We wrote about the Guanches in general here: The Guanches, the first people of the Canary Islands.
What you can see in the park
The Parque Etnográfico Pirámides de Güímar has also been a botanical garden since 2017. Besides the pyramids, here is what awaits you:
The Casa Chacona museum, in a 19th-century building, presents Heyerdahl's theory of contacts between ancient civilisations, and also shows how the sunrise looks from Pyramid 2 on the winter solstice.
The expedition hall has replicas of the Kon-Tiki (1947), the Ra II (1970) and the Tigris (1977/78), and in the Plaza Laurel stands a large-scale replica of the Ra II, built by Aymara people.
The Poison Garden has more than 70 poisonous plant species on 1,500 square metres, and according to the park it is the only one of its kind in the Canary Islands.
The Sustainable Garden, created together with the Universidad de La Laguna, recreates the watercourse of a Canarian ravine, and the open-air Volcanic Route explains how the islands were formed geologically.
Audio guides are available in Spanish, English, German, Italian, French, Norwegian and Russian. Bring comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a cap, and you can bring your pet too (one per adult). Check ticket prices and opening hours on the park's official website.
When to go
Every year the park holds an event around the summer solstice, and announces the date and the number of places on its social media in June. If you would like to spend the winter solstice there, this year it falls on 21 December. It is also a good plan for a rainy day: we recommend it in our article what to do in Tenerife when it rains, and it is well worth coming with children too: What to do in Tenerife with kids.
Getting there, and what else to see nearby
By car: take the TF-1 motorway, exit 22. The park has its own car park at the main entrance and another in the northern part.
By bus: from Santa Cruz there are direct services to Güímar; from the south you change at the Güímar stop. You will find current timetables and route numbers on the TITSA website.
Nearby: the Malpaís de Güímar is a special nature reserve (Reserva Natural Especial) on the coast, with a volcanic cone 276 metres high and lava flows no more than 10,000 years old, one of the finest cardón and tabaiba scrublands in the Canary Islands (both are Canarian spurges), and more than a hundred plant species. You may only walk on the marked paths, and do not collect stones or build towers out of them. The beach at Puertito de Güímar is made of pebbles (callaos) and black sand, right in the centre of the coastal village. Güímar has two farmers' markets; we have listed their days in our article on Tenerife's farmers' markets, and the central one is here: the Plaza de San Pedro market listing.
Coming from Santa Cruz, you pass Candelaria with its Basílica de la Virgen de Candelaria. If the valley's Guanche past interests you, our article The invisible map of Tenerife: the nine menceyatos also tells the story of the kingdom of Güímar.
Sources: Jiménez Gómez, M. C. and Navarro Mederos, J. F.: the Chacona excavation (Universidad de La Laguna, 1996, published 1998, revistas.grancanaria.com); the archaeoastronomy project of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (research.iac.es); the official website of the Parque Etnográfico Pirámides de Güímar (piramidesdeguimar.es); Universidad de La Laguna, Ciencia ULL column; Diario de Avisos; Gobierno de Canarias, BOC (Malpaís de Güímar); Biodiversidad Canarias (iNatura); Hola Islas Canarias; Turismo de Tenerife (webtenerife.com); TITSA.
Cover photo (cropped): the pyramids of Güímar. Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
