Dolmen de El Tesoro
DatedEst. 4000–3000 BCE
Photo Ernestobanpiroa · CC BY 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The dolmen of El Tesoro (Basque: El Tesoro trikuharria) is a megalithic tomb in the territory of Morales de Rey, in the province of Zamora, Spain. It is dated to 3500 to 3000 BCE, and it takes its name from 18 Roman bronze coins found there.
It was very badly damaged by intensive farming, but excavation showed that it is a passage grave.
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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.
Article
Dolmen de El Tesoro
The dolmen lies to the west of the town of Morales de Rey, on the upper terrace of the river Eria.
SettingSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
The dolmen lies to the west of the town of Morales de Rey, on the upper terrace of the river Eria.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
The dolmen had been badly damaged by the extensive agricultural cultivation of the surrounding land. Excavation uncovered a passage running to the south-east, which made it easy to classify the monument as a passage grave. There was no mound: the site had been subject to several earth movements, and the mound had disappeared completely.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
Few archaeological materials were recovered. They were objects left beside the dead as grave goods, namely several flint tools, Neolithic pottery and fragments of some ornaments.
NameSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
The name of the dolmen derives from the 18 Roman bronze coins found there.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
Spain has a great many megalithic tombs. 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.
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.
Photographs
1 photograph, each with its author and licence
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
- 42°04′12″ N, 5°47′39″ WFor a GPS or map app: 42.06997, -5.79425
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.
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q125391085wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- El Tesoro.jpgErnestobanpiroaCC BY 4.0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "El Tesoro trikuharria" (Basque), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; authors are listed in the page history. Reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikipedia · Edit history and authors
- Wikipedia (Basque): El Tesoro trikuharriaCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q125391085CC0