Portugal # 9: Dolmens 23
November 2011
Linda and I have a long history together of hunting dolmens.
Give us the slenderest hint of a dolmen within thirty kilometers of where we
are busily doing something else, and without hesitation we drop everything and
set out to find it.
A dolmen, for those of you without Paleolithic funerary
monuments in your back yard, is an artfully arranged pile of stones in which to
bury a person of some distinction and thus (a) facilitate his (presumably only
males merited this) passage to the world of the dead; (b) please the gods and
ensure their favored treatment for the tribe; (c) create a tribal center, a
locus, for a (presumably) migratory group of hunters and gatherers; or (d)
other. Actually nobody really knows why people built them, although the
massiveness of their construction, the homogeneity of the architectural style
from northernmost Scotland all the way to northwestern Morocco, and their links
to some sort of funerary practices lead archaeologists to a few strong
surmises:
These groups
were structured.
They had an
oral tradition that communicated the activity, its purpose, and the
architectural style.
They were
socially stratified. Somebody had to organize the labor force, choose the site,
manage the engineering, etc.; and somebody else had to lug and lift a lot of
very heavy stones.
They must
have conceived of an afterlife, and some superior power who governed it (and
them), or else why go to all the effort.
They are
related to Celtic peoples. Where there are or were Celts, there are dolmens
(though the dolmens undoubtedly predate the modern Celtic cultures we’re
familiar with). The great-great-grandchildren of the people who made dolmens play
bagpipes.
So what sorts of massive thingeys are we talking about?
Monumental paleolithic European stuff comes in three varieties: menhirs,
cromlechs, and dolmens. Menhirs are huge vertically planted rocks. In size
we’re talking anything from fence-post to upended school bus Phallic? Probably.
Simple to build? Yes: just find a really long thin rock and upend it. Harder if
it weighs several tons. Calendrically or astronomically useful? Maybe. There
are over a thousand of them arranged in rows at Carnac in Brittany and they
must have been used for …. well, something. Take two menh
irs, bridge them with
another massive stone (think π), and arrange them in a circle, and you have a
cromlech. Make a really big one, you get Stonehenge.
Dolmens are more complex. Generally they are made of two
parallel lines of large menhirs, capped, cromlech-like, with a flat roofing
stone. Lined up next to each other they
form a kind of tunnel. The tunnel usually leads to a burial chamber composed of
vertical flat stones tightly fitted into a circle, which is capped by some
other massive flat stone. After burying the dignitary or dignitaries, the whole
structure is covered with earth so that it looks like a low mound. Though
dolmens can be found in almost any topographical setting, from river basin
(like the Cueva de Menga in Antequera in Spain, which is the largest dolmen
we’ve ever seen), their builders seemed to favor high ridgetops in the
bleakest, windiest, rockiest, gorsiest, most uncomfortable places with the best
views imaginable. If you’re hunting dolmens, hang onto your hat.
How do we find out about them? The biggest and best known
make it into the guidebooks and onto the maps. Often a road sign shaped like a
π with an arrow pointing up a hill will cause us to slam on the brakes. What’s
fun, of course, is hunting for the ones that are not quite so well known. When
we’re about to travel someplace I often scan the archeological literature for
clues. I take out my maps (the more detailed the better), and mark where I
think they are: π π π.
How do we actually find them? That’s harder. The literature
tends to give only approximate locations. From the road, one rocky hillside
looks pretty much like another, and dolmens, with or without their mounds, tend
to be low to the ground. Over the years I’d say we’ve found about 30% of the
dolmens we’ve gone looking for, which isn’t bad, considering. And, frankly, it
doesn’t matter all that much. While we’re looking for them we find the most
extraordinary, off-the-beaten-path things. We get to places, generally remote,
that we would never otherwise have ventured into. When it looks like we’re
really lost and are never going to find the dolmen, whoever gives up first
starts to honk, signaling that they have relegated the search to the status of
wild goose chase.
From time to time we even have an adventure. Twice in the
past our targeted dolmens have turned out to be on ranches in Spain where they
were raising fighting bulls. Both times we climbed the fence and made our way
between the placidly grazing black bovines. Both times we found the dolmens.
Only once did we have to sprint for the fence on our way out.
No wild adventure this Monday though; just a normal,
perplexing, uncomfortable ramble. We were driving from Coimbra north to Lamego
over rough, rock-strewn, mountainous terrain. The map I’d brought with me
(1:100,000) had a dolmen sign about 15 km east of Castro
Daire. It was not yet raining when we wound down from the heights (3,000 feet)
to the bridge over the river (± 2,000 feet), and then corckscrewed up to the
next ridge top where our east-heading road branched off. Uncharacteristically
for dolmen chasing, it was paved, painted, and guardrailed. Thank the gods,
because the sides were also precipitous. The map suggested that just past the
village of São Joaninho we were to turn south for another five kilometers, and
then, where the road ended, look for the dolmen. San Joaninho was
No
one to ask, everyone was in church, and it didn’t seem appropriate to
interrupt. Honking was heard.
But as we drove out of town, Linda spotted a π on a small
signpost a couple of hundred meters further up the road. Pointing north, not
south. So up that road we went. We were above the tree line now, just broom and
prickly blackberry thickets. It still wasn’t raining, but it was growing very
dark
and the fog had descended to just above the aerial of our car. After a
kilometer or so of climbing another small π sign pointed into a boulder strewn
and fire scorched field that rose into the foggy distance. We parked, and
picked our way up the hill. Rocks, more rocks. We split up, looking for any low
mound or vertically raised stone.
Finally I found a small burial chamber and—simultaneously, a
hundred feet distant—Linda found a small mound that had entrance passages cut
into all four sides. Pretty small for dolmens.
In fact, they may well be the
smallest dolmens we’ve ever found. They looked like salesmen’s samples. Also,
they were pretty much destroyed. We took a few pictures anyway. There may have
been a full-size dolmen out on that hillside someplace, but the sky was
preaching haste and we decided not to plead for ten more minutes, please.
As we worked our way back down the hill toward the road
where we had left the car, we passed two definite mounds with their massive
capstones uncovered, and another couple of mounds that seemed like possibles. The
fog was thickening into rain and the cold wind was driving it into us like BB’s.
We made it to the car just as the clouds opened up.
All in all, a thoroughly satisfying excursion. We failed to
find the dolmen we were looking for, but found some others that we hadn’t had a
clue about. Or, maybe, the map just got the location wrong. And the hórreos were
a nice bonus.
We’ll try again tomorrow.
D&L
