Dolmen de la Casa del Moro
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
Overview
The Dolmen de la Casa del Moro is a passage grave on the estate of Muélledes, in the south-west corner of the municipality of Gejuelo del Barro, in the province of Salamanca, Spain. It was discovered in 1915 by César Morán Bardón and is the best-preserved dolmen in the province.
It is protected as a bien de interés cultural. Finds point to use in the third millennium BCE and to a later Bell Beaker occupation.
Read on Wikipedia2 min readCC BY-SA 4.0
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 la Casa del Moro
It keeps three of its original cover slabs and all the other orthostats of the original construction.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de la Casa del MoroCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de la Casa del MoroCC BY-SA 4.0
The tomb is a passage grave with a circular chamber about 3.30 metres in diameter and a passage more than 6 metres long and 1 metre wide. Both occupy the central part of the tumulus, which now has a subcircular plan measuring 31 x 27 metres and an average height of a little over 1.5 metres.
The chamber has no cover. It is formed by ten granite orthostats of varying widths, taken from an area 1.5 metres away. The passage, oriented to the south-east, is formed by slabs more than 2.5 metres high and of varying width. It keeps three of its original cover slabs and all the other orthostats of the original construction.
ExcavationsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de la Casa del MoroCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de la Casa del MoroCC BY-SA 4.0
The material recovered in the excavations is scarce. It shows that the cultural phases represented at Casa del Moro do not contradict those recorded in other dolmens of the province: material typical of the third millennium BCE and characteristic of dolmens, and a later Bell Beaker occupation. The catalogue gives a typological estimate of 4000 to 3000 BCE for the monument.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de la Casa del MoroCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Dolmen de la Casa del MoroCC BY-SA 4.0
Spain has a great many megalithic tombs, and its dolmens run from Andalusia in the south to Galicia in the north-west.
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
From the article
Dated moments in the story
- 1915
El dolmen de la Casa del Moro en la finca de Muélledes, sita en el ángulo suroeste del término municipal de Gejuelo del Barro (Provincia de Salamanca, España), fue descubierto en 1915 por don César Morán Bardón.
Source
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
- 41°02′19″ N, 6°09′45″ WFor a GPS or map app: 41.03859, -6.16251
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 Q5812507wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
- Dolmen de la Ermita5.8 km SW
- Dolmen of Zafrón12 km E
- Dolmen of La Nava del Hito45 km W
- Dolmen de La Ermita61 km SE
- Dolmen El Teriñuelo69 km SE
- Anta da Pedra de Anta84 km SW
- Anta de Vilarinho da Castanheira88 km W
- Antas de Vilarinho90 km W
- dolmen of the House of the Moor, Casillas de Flores91 km SW
- Dolmen El Matón95 km S
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dolmen de la Casa del Moro" (Spanish), 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