These dolmens were also discovered by the Viera brothers (in 1905), who gave the building the name of a country house near the site. Around it were objects that must have been part of a stakeout. Part of the original altar was found here. In the second burial chamber, a huge stone in the shape of a pillar appears to hang eight inches above the floor, because it is mounted horizontally in the wall. The front burial chamber is almost twice the size of the rear. The walls are made of small stones and the burial chambers are both covered with a huge flat stone. A long, narrow corridor leads to two round burial chambers, one behind the other, separated by a narrow corridor. This is a dolmen of the ‘tholos’ type, which means dome. One kilometre away, the Romeral dolmen represents a much more modern construction dating back to the end of the Bronze Age (around 1800 BC). To support the roof bricks, there are three large pillars in the square part at the back. It is inconceivable that without technical aids people would have been able to move this gigantic piece of limestone, let alone lay it across the other blocks. The burial chamber is formed by seven large square blocks of stone that are covered by a massive 180,000 kilograms (42 square meters!) rock. From the entrance, the dolmen looks like a long-covered gallery. A small hill houses a large, monumental and oval-shaped burial chamber. The Menga dolmen is the oldest of the three and dates back to the beginning of the Bronze Age (around 2,500 BC). The first restoration work started in 1941 Dólmen de Menga It wasn’t until 1905 that the other dolmens were discovered. Two years later they discovered the dolmen of Menga. After this dolmen had disappeared from view again, the Viera brothers discovered in 1903 the first dolmen near their farm. In 1847, Málaga municipal architect Rafael Mitjana published a short study on the then famous “Cueva de Menga” (cave of Menga). The Menga dolmen has been famous since the second half of the 17th century. To date, no human remains have been found in the dolmens of Antequera, but it is believed that they were once robbed or have now completely decayed. These indicate a socially stratified society, in which the chiefs and their families were given more luxurious cemeteries than others. ![]() In Europe several versions of this type of collective graves can be found, such as Stonehenge in England. A few refer to the dolmen of Menga as the Sistine Chapel of antiquity. On the plain of Antequera, these dolmens are evidence of the existence of a prehistoric civilization. Because of this we can still admire them and marvel at gigantic boulders with which our distant ancestors, aided only by muscle, livestock, wooden planks and logs, built collective graves for the better off. Despite their long existence, the dolmens in Antequera have remained largely intact. Originally, “dolmen” is Breton for table. Dolmens are prehistoric funerary monuments made of large vertical boulders topped with other large stones that act as a roof. The site is on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |