Artxiña
DatedEst. 4000–3000 BCE
No licensed photograph yetWe have no photograph we may publish for this site, so the interpretive 3D view leads instead.
Overview
About this site
What the sources say
Artxiña is a dolmen recorded in Basaburua, Spain. Its entries are Wikidata item Q66114000; the position in the catalogue is 43.0445° N, 1.7950° W. Wikidata gives an elevation of 908 m.
Built from structured records, not from an articleSources and licences
Where it sits in time
The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.
The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.
The full article
About Artxiña
This kind of monument hereSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Spain has a great many megalithic tombs, and the Atlas's Spanish dolmens run from Andalusia in the south to Galicia in the north-west. The finest are at Antequera in Andalusia, where the Dolmen of Menga, dated to about 3750 to 3650 BCE, is among the largest ancient megalithic structures in Europe. It is 27.5 metres long, 6 metres wide and 3.5 metres high, built with thirty-two megaliths, the largest weighing about 180 tonnes. After the chamber was finished it was covered with soil and built up into the hill seen today; when it was opened in the nineteenth century archaeologists found the skeletons of several hundred people. The Dolmen of Viera stands 70 metres away, and the tholos of El Romeral lies about 4 kilometres off; the three were inscribed as the Antequera Dolmens Site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 2016. Further down this page, About this kind of monument gives the whole of “Dolmens of Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia”.
DatingSources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
The Atlas shows 4000 BCE to 3000 BCE for this site, but that is a regional estimate for this kind of monument, not a date for this particular dolmen. No excavation, radiocarbon sample or other measurement is recorded for it, so the real age could fall anywhere within the range, or outside it.
The range rests on this regional background (source: the Wikipedia article “Dolmen”): Most dolmens date from the Late Neolithic period (4000-3000 BCE); the Dolmen of Menga in Andalusia dates to about 3750-3650 BCE.
Landscape and neighbours
Within 10 km lie 151 other catalogued sites (1 within 1 km, 20 within 5 km); 73 of them are also classed as dolmen. That puts it inside a dense cluster of monuments. It is one of 17 dolmen records among the 22 sites catalogued in Basaburua, Spain.
The nearest neighbours in the catalogue are Beigañe (destruido) (0.8 km north-west, dolmen); Kaate soroa (1.6 km south-east, megalithic mound); Alkardur 2 ekialde (1.9 km west, dolmen); Patat-alor (Zurittu berri) (1.9 km east, dolmen). The catalogue is assembled from open records and is not complete, so unrecorded monuments may lie closer.
Records and protectionSources for this section
Sources for this section
Wikidata lists the site with the heritage status Archaeological site in Nafarroa. The open records for it are Wikidata (Q66114000), where corrections and further identifiers can be added. Access varies from open common land to private fields; check local access rules, ask where needed, and take care not to damage the monument.
How this page was madeSources for this section
Sources for this section
This page was built automatically from Wikidata (CC0), the heritage register named above and the regional article “Dolmens of Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia”, written for the Atlas from the Wikipedia articles it cites (CC BY-SA 4.0), plus distances and counts computed from the catalogue coordinates. It contains no AI-written text.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Dolmens of Andalusia, Extremadura and Galicia
Spain has a great many megalithic tombs, and the Atlas's Spanish dolmens run from Andalusia in the south to Galicia in the north-west. The finest are at Antequera in Andalusia, where the Dolmen of Menga, dated to about 3750 to 3650 BCE, is among the largest ancient megalithic structures in Europe. It is 27.5 metres long, 6 metres wide and 3.5 metres high, built with thirty-two megaliths, the largest weighing about 180 tonnes. After the chamber was finished it was covered with soil and built up into the hill seen today; when it was opened in the nineteenth century archaeologists found the skeletons of several hundred people. The Dolmen of Viera stands 70 metres away, and the tholos of El Romeral lies about 4 kilometres off; the three were inscribed as the Antequera Dolmens Site, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 2016.
In the south-west, the Dolmen de Soto at Trigueros in Huelva province is a Neolithic tomb estimated to date between 3000 and 2500 BCE, one of about 200 Neolithic burial sites in the province. It was found in 1922 when its owner, Armando de Soto Morillas, wanted to build a house; the German archaeologist Hugo Obermaier found eight bodies in a fetal position with artefacts, and its engraved and painted uprights have been studied more recently.
In Galicia and Portugal a dolmen is an anta, and in Catalan-speaking areas dolmens have folk names such as cova (cave), caixa (crate or coffin), taula (table) and arca (chest). These names are tradition: they record what people made of the monuments, not what they were built for.
When visiting Menga, look at the great capstones from inside the corridor, and at the way the mound was built up over the chamber.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Dolmen of Menga, Wikipedia: Dolmen of Viera, Wikipedia: Antequera Dolmens Site, Wikipedia: Dolmen de Soto, Wikipedia: Dolmen · CC BY-SA 4.0
See it in 3D
An interpretive reconstruction of the monument, standing on the real ground at its exact point, under the sun for that place and season. Drag to look around it.
The reconstruction is ours, not a survey: it shows what a monument of this type looks like, at the size the record gives for this one.
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 4000–3000 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for dolmens in Spain; this site has not been dated itself. Most dolmens date from the Late Neolithic period (4000-3000 BCE); the Dolmen of Menga in Andalusia dates to about 3750-3650 BCE.Source for this date
Where it stands
Spain
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 43°02′40″ N, 1°47′42″ WFor a GPS or map app: 43.04446, -1.79497
Access is as our sources describe it; we have not visited the site to check.
Nearby
The closest sites in the Atlas, by straight line.
- DolmenBeigañe (destruido)4000–3000 BCE
- Megalithic mound (tumulus with integral stones)Kaate soroa4300–1200 BCE
- DolmenAlkardur 2 ekialde4000–3000 BCE
- DolmenPatat-alor (Zurittu berri)4000–3000 BCE
Dolmen de Patat-Alor4000–3000 BCE
Erasun – Igoa (Isasti)4000–3000 BCE
Alkardur 1 mendebalde (Otzola)4000–3000 BCE
Elkorra4000–3000 BCE
Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q66114000wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Report a correctionWrong date, name, photograph or source? Tell us and it will be put right.
Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
This page is assembled from open records (Wikidata, CC0; OpenStreetMap, ODbL) and a tradition article paraphrasing Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). No article exists for this site, and nothing here is written by a model.
- Wikidata Q66114000CC0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0
- en.wikipedia.orgCC BY-SA 4.0