Néstor Esteban approached the Museum of Navarre with his family on December 29 of last year. In the prehistoric hall they wanted to see the Hand of Irulegi and the Man of Loizu. There were no scheduled guided tours, but local worker Oier Santamaría told them he would give some explanations. He received them in Basque. The visitors gathered and made a brief visit in Spanish. Esteban knew a visitor who had been in the previous round and asked him what language they had used in theirs. The same answer: Spanish.

With the language issue in mind, Esteban unexpectedly read a message from Santamaría on social media: “You can visit the Hand of the Swallow and the Man of Loizu in the Museum of Navarre from today. You will be interceding with me, clearing my doubts.” Santamaría encouraged people to go to the museum. Esteban answered if there would be an opportunity to receive them in Basque, and Santamaría asked them to make official requests and popular support, that is, to make written requests at the entrance of the museum.

Warning to each other, Observatories??? He has received and handled complaints. complaint that the guided visits have been in Spanish and??? Because the complaint is only in Spanish at the entrance.

And it seems that the demands of the population have been affected. Esteban realizes this through his children. At the school they are invited to visit the Hand of the Swirl and the Man of Loizu and it is then that he realizes that the guided visits are now announced (unlike before), with the schedules defined, as well as the language. From Friday to Sunday, ten visits have started and four of them are in Basque. Esteban says so: “There is an imbalance between languages, but at least now it can be done in Basque and not so far, even if it is a Basque guide.” It is clear that the Hand of Irulegi and the Man of Loizu now have the opportunity to meet in Basque because the Basques have complained, otherwise it would not have happened. He was curious about the need to visit the Hand of Irulegi in Spanish, which revolves around the language, considering that most of the visitors were Basque, “there were a lot of Basques, they listened in Basque!”

At the entrance in Spanish

Complaints have also been received from the Observatory about the management or non-management of the incoming language. A user who has visited the museum several times with children reports that the entrance staff does not know Basque. To call someone who knows English and the answer is: “We are here, there is no one.” When buying tickets, the same thing has happened to the employee who organizes the transfers of groups of people, it must be done in Spanish. This user says that when the last one left, there was a long line to visit the Prehistoric Hall and several dialects could be heard.

It doesn’t always reach the ratio 6-4

Six in Spanish and four in Basque to visit the Hand of Irulegi. Almost half and half. If you look at the website of the Museum of Navarre, these proportions are not common. To give two examples, there are nineteen visits scheduled in Spanish for the demonstration of the Moon in the water and nine in Basque. In the exhibition Shadows of Light, there are six in Spanish and two in Basque. Néstor Esteban said: “There is also Basque because the Basques have complained.