Menhir del Cabezo
DatedEst. 2800–1800 BCE
Photo Estevoaei · CC BY-SA 4.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons
Overview
About this site
Overview
The menhir del Cabezo is a granite standing stone in the municipality of Alcántara, province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain. It stands 4.65 metres high, with a diameter reaching 1.2 metres in places, and is the sixth largest menhir found in Spain.
It lay on the ground for a long time and was re-erected in 2015. A typological estimate places it between 2800 and 1800 BCE.
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
Menhir del Cabezo
The menhir is in the centre-north of the municipality of Alcántara, midway between the rivers Erjas and Alagón, about 2 km north-east of Estorninos and about 3 km south of Piedras Albas.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Menhir del CabezoCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Menhir del CabezoCC BY-SA 4.0
The menhir is in the centre-north of the municipality of Alcántara, midway between the rivers Erjas and Alagón, about 2 km north-east of Estorninos and about 3 km south of Piedras Albas. It lies within the archaeological landscape of the dolmens of Alcántara. It is one of the few menhirs preserved in Extremadura, a region where other megalithic monuments such as dolmens are more usual.
The stone bears a pair of large cup marks, of 15 and 25 cm, at the ends of the megalith, and smaller cup marks elsewhere on its surface.
Research historySources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Menhir del CabezoCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Menhir del CabezoCC BY-SA 4.0
The menhir lay fallen for a long time. In 2008 it was investigated by the archaeologists Primitiva Bueno and Rodrigo de Balbín. In 2015 its rehabilitation and re-erection were entrusted to the archaeologist and restorer Miguel Ángel López Marcos.
ContextSources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Menhir del CabezoCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Menhir del CabezoCC BY-SA 4.0
In Spain, menhirs of the western European megalithic type are relatively unusual compared with dolmens. They are more common in the northern half of the country, where at least 500 have been reported, and they usually stand alone or in small groups in elevated places. Most appear to date back to the Stone Age, and they are not usually associated with burials.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Iberian menhirs
In Spain menhirs of the western European megalithic type are relatively unusual compared with dolmens, but are common sights in the northern half of the country, where at least 500 have been reported. They are particularly common in the Basque Country, Navarre, northern Burgos and Palencia, Cantabria and the Pyrenees, usually standing alone or in small groups (cromlechs) in elevated places. Most appear to date back to the Stone Age. They are not usually associated with burials, though at the Menhir of Cuesta del Molino in Burgos burials were made at least 2,000 years after the menhir was raised. The Arlobi menhir is one of the most recent examples.
Portugal's highest concentration is in the Alentejo, where the Menhir of Meada is the largest on the Iberian Peninsula. The Menhir of Outeiro, near Reguengos de Monsaraz in the district of Évora, is the second largest in Portugal: a granite monolith 5.6 metres high, about a metre across and an estimated eight tonnes. It was found lying on its side in 1969 by Henrique Leonor Pina and José Pires Gonçalves and re-erected about 1970, and was classified as a national monument in 1971. A hollow in its top has been read as a urethra, so that the stone is taken as phallic; that is an interpretation, not a fact.
The Almendres Cromlech near Évora is the largest group of structured menhirs on the Iberian Peninsula, and one of the largest in Europe. It belongs to the "megalithic universe of Évora", with parallels in the Portela de Mogos cromlech. Its beginnings have been put as far back as the sixth millennium BCE, which would make it extremely early, and it was rediscovered in 1966 by Henrique Leonor Pina.
When visiting, look for stones on high ground and note which way they face.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Menhir, Wikipedia: Menhir of Outeiro, Wikipedia: Almendres Cromlech, Wikipedia: List of menhirs · 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
4 photographs, each with its author and licence
More photographs
Lore
Evidence & Lore
What the sources actually support — and, kept apart, what has been claimed.
What the evidence supports
Dates
Est. 2800–1800 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical range for menhirs in Spain; this site has not been dated itself. Standing stones are associated with the Beaker people of the European late Neolithic and early Bronze Age c. 2800-1800 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Spain
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 39°45′22″ N, 6°55′00″ WFor a GPS or map app: 39.75613, -6.91669
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 Q31839866wikidata.org
- 02Source for this dateen.wikipedia.org
Image files
- Menhir de Cabezo 01.jpgEstevoaeiCC BY-SA 4.0
- Menhir de Cabezo 02.jpgEstevoaeiCC BY-SA 4.0
- Menhir de Cabezo 03.jpgEstevoaeiCC BY-SA 4.0
- Menhir de Cabezo, Alcántara.jpgJulen Iturbe-OrmaetxeCC BY-SA 2.0
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Around this place
The ten nearest sites, by compass
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Menhir del Cabezo" (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
- Wikipedia (Spanish): Menhir del CabezoCC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikidata Q31839866CC0