Anta de Curral dos Mouros
Also known asanta de Curral dos Mouros
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 Anta de Curral dos Mouros, also called the Dolmen de Sobreda, is a dolmen at Sobreda in the parish of Seixo da Beira, in the municipality of Oliveira do Hospital, district of Coimbra, Portugal. The catalogue dates it by typological estimate to between 4000 and 3000 BCE. It was classified as an Immovable Cultural Heritage of Public Interest in 1959.
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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
Anta de Curral dos Mouros
The monument has lost all the roof slabs over the burial chamber and the covered passage, and more than half of the supporting orthostates of the passage are missing.
DescriptionSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Anta de Curral dos MourosCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Anta de Curral dos MourosCC BY-SA 4.0
The monument has lost all the roof slabs over the burial chamber and the covered passage, and more than half of the supporting orthostates of the passage are missing. The supporting stones of the chamber form an oval room, probably paved, which was entered by a long, wide passage. At the end of the nineteenth century traces of red paint were still visible on one of the chamber stones.
FindsSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Anta de Curral dos MourosCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Anta de Curral dos MourosCC BY-SA 4.0
The dolmen, said to be about 6 000 years old, contained a variety of stone tools, including nearly 150 arrowheads, broken pottery from about 500 vessels, and even wood and bone. The organic material is easily degraded and hard to detect because of the high acidity of the soil.
HistorySources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Anta de Curral dos MourosCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Anta de Curral dos MourosCC BY-SA 4.0
After a short period of use the anta was closed, and its mound was used again over the following two millennia by bearers of other cultures. The Anta de Arcaínha lies about 3,3 km to the west.
NameSources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Anta de Curral dos MourosCC BY-SA 4.0
Sources for this section
- Wikipedia (French): Anta de Curral dos MourosCC BY-SA 4.0
The word anta is the Portuguese equivalent of ante, the terminal pillar of a Greek or Roman temple, but it is also used for the stones of a dolmen or for the dolmen itself. About 5 000 megalithic structures of this type were built in the west of the Iberian Peninsula in the Neolithic by the successors of the Cardial pottery culture.
Tradition and region
About this kind of monument
Portuguese antas of the Alentejo
Around Évora, in the Alentejo, megalithic tombs are called antas, and some of the largest in Iberia stand here. The Great Dolmen of Zambujeiro, near Valverde in the municipality of Évora, is considered one of the biggest such structures in Iberia. Research has dated it to between 4000 and 3000 BCE, concurrent with the megalithic building of the Évora region, and it is linked to the Great Dolmen of Comenda da Igreja at Montemor-o-Novo. Henrique Leonor Pina excavated it in 1965, and although his methods caused some controversy, the work recovered slate tablets, necklaces, crosiers, copper objects, ceramics and carinated bowls. The Portuguese government declared it a national monument in 1971.
The finds show that the tombs were used for generations: slate tablets, personal ornaments and copper objects in the chambers reach into the Chalcolithic, so one anta can carry evidence for several centuries of burial custom. Excavated anta chambers are the main source for dating, since the stones themselves cannot be dated.
Nearby, the Almendres Cromlech is a large group of standing stones, a reminder that the Alentejo's megalithic landscape also includes open-air stone enclosures and single menhirs, not only tombs.
The Atlas's records here include small antas, some reduced to a few standing slabs, and many lack a secure excavation date. They are labelled with a typological range.
When visiting, look for the chamber and the passage that leads to it, and for the way the monument sits in its field. Check access in advance.
Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Great Dolmen of Zambujeiro, Wikipedia: Great Dolmen of Comenda da Igreja, Wikipedia: Almendres Cromlech, Wikipedia: Dolmen · CC BY-SA 4.0
From the article
Dated moments in the story
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 Portugal; this site has not been dated itself. Most dolmens date from the Late Neolithic period (4000-3000 BCE); megalithic tombs at Algarve in Portugal date to c. 2500 BC.Source for this date
Where it stands
Portugal
The pin marks the monument itself — its exact point.
- Coordinates
- 40°27′13″ N, 7°48′15″ WFor a GPS or map app: 40.45357, -7.80422
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.
- DolmenAnta da Arcainha4000–3000 BCE
- DolmenAnta de Pinheiro dos Abraços4000–3000 BCE
- DolmenAnta de Arcaínha ou Dólmen do Seixo da Beira4000–3000 BCE
Antas de Paranhos4000–3000 BCE
Conjunto dos Monumentos Megalíticos de Fiais/Azenha4000–3000 BCEPhoto: Vitor Oliveira from Torres Vedras, PORTUGAL · CC BY-SA 2.0
- DolmenOrca de Pramelas4000–3000 BCE
Dólmen da Orca4500–1800 BCE
Anta do Pinheiro dos Abraços4000–3000 BCE
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Sources
Every record behind this page, with the link it came from.
2 sources behind this page
- 01Wikidata Q20170765wikidata.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
- Anta de Pinheiro dos Abraços3.5 km W
- Anta da Arcainha3.5 km W
- Anta de Arcaínha ou Dólmen do Seixo da Beira3.6 km W
- Antas de Paranhos4.1 km N
- Conjunto dos Monumentos Megalíticos de Fiais/Azenha10 km W
- Orca de Pramelas11 km NW
- Dólmen da Orca11 km W
- Anta do Pinheiro dos Abraços12 km SW
- Dolmen of Cunha Baixa13 km N
- Anta da Pedra da Orca14 km E
Credit
Text, licence and sources
Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Anta de Curral dos Mouros" (French), 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