Crucially, Ramirez tells McMurtry of Atlas Obscura, Guadalperal was far from the only archaeological site impacted by the dictator’s modernizing agenda. Three years later, a civil engineering project ordered by Francisco Franco’s regime brought a dam and reservoir to the region, offering an economic boon but submerging the dolmen underwater. Obermaier’s research remained unpublished until 1960. Based on the discovery of a Roman coin at the site, the scholar posited that it had previously been sacked by invading imperial forces. Although he sent unearthed artifacts back to his home country for study and exhibition, as David Vigario explains for El Mundo, Obermaier left the enormous stones in place, preserving as much of the monument’s original structure as possible. (Speaking with Mario Adell of Spanish broadcasting station RTVE, Castaño adds that if confirmed as an early example of cartography, the engraving would represent one of the “oldest realistic physical maps in the world.”)Ī German researcher named Hugo Obermaier first excavated the dolmen between 19. While Castaño suggests a curvy line seen on the menhir refers to the winding route of the nearby Tagus River, archaeologist Primitiva Bueno Ramírez identifies the marking as a snake with a triangular head. “They seemed to have a religious but also economic purpose, being at one of the few points of the river where it was possible to cross, so it was a sort of trading hub.”Īrchaeologists first excavated the Dolmen of Guadalperal in the mid-1920sĮxperts are divided on the nature of one megalith engraving, Euronews’ Marta Rodriguez Martinez reports. “Like Stonehenge, formed a sun temple and burial ground,” Castaño tells Govan. An engraved menhir stood guard at the structure’s entrance, while a pebble wall later built around the dolmen cemented its status as a collective burial site. ![]() Likely used as both a temple and cemetery, the monument once featured menhirs, or tall upright stones, topped by horizontal slabs of stone to form an enclosed dolmen, which is a single-chambered tomb. “If we don’t act now,” Castaño warns in another interview with Local’s Fiona Govan, “it could be too late.”Īccording to David Barreira of El Español, the Dolmen of Guadalperal consists of about 140 boulders arranged in a concentric circle. Cultural preservationists are calling to move the megaliths to a new location on dry land. Some show signs of erosion or have fallen over others are already cracking. Still, the dolmen’s reappearance isn’t wholly positive: Per a petition calling for the monument’s preservation, the granite stones that dot the archaeological site are highly porous. ![]() It’s spectacular because you can appreciate the entire complex for the first time in decades.” ![]() “I had seen parts of it peeking out from the water before, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in full. “All my life, people had told me about the dolmen,” Angel Castaño, resident of a nearby village and president of the local Raíces de Peralêda cultural association, tells Atlas Obscura’s Alyssa McMurtry. ![]() Nearly 60 years later, local news outlets report, the landmark widely known as “Spanish Stonehenge” has reemerged, freed from submersion in the Valdecañas Reservoir by an unusually severe drought season. In 1963, the Dolmen of Guadalperal-a megalithic monument raised in the city of Cáceres, Spain, around 4,000 to 7,000 years ago-vanished from view.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |