Antequera Dolmens Site

March 2017 - it was our 3rd Whs on the honeymoon trip. After we had spent the night in Ronda, a very pictueresque town north of Gibraltar, we drove past the Caminito del Rey. Unfortunately it was loaded with visitors, so we had to skip the hike. On very small roads, passing several herds of sheep, we finally reached El Torcal. And surprisingly, there was even a bit of snow when we arrived.

The visitor center has some information on the natural sight but also about the solar significance of the rocks. We took a nice hike between the interesting rock formations, and have to admit, that just the natural beauty of the side would be worse the inscription. Don't really understand why it is only a cultural side and not mixed. For our amusement, there were also some wild goats lingering about, and there are some viewpoints to look down to Antequera or the other side towards the sea.

We stayed overnight in a simple hotel in Antequera just opposited the Manga and Viera Dolmens, which we visited next morning. Similar experience like in Newgrange, Ireland. We continued our journey further East to Granada. For a few kilometeres you can glance at the Indian staring in the air from many perspectives. A bit East, visit Archidona, one of the Olive Groves.

After our 2017 meetup in Gibraltar, I joined Philipp and his brother for a trip to Antequera. I had anticipated the usual prehistoric fare: a few rocks, maybe some carvings, and 15min later we would be done and move on. To my surprise, as we approached the site, we were pulling up a mountain with plenty of scenic views along the way.

I think we were the first at the El Torcal parking lot that day. The on-site museum and shop were not yet opened as we hiked into the canyon. I felt reminded of Bryce Canyon with all the weird stone towers along the trail. It was a nice hike and I would have loved to go further.

After returning to the parking lot, we had dinner and headed down to the dolmen sites in Antequera proper. One dolmen site had a not very memorable on-site museum attached to it. And I think we didn't spend much more than the aforementioned 15min on each site. But taken together with the rock formations in the mountains it's a nice site.

Getting There

Getting to Antequera (the city) is fairly easy. The town has train or bus connections to Malaga, Granada, Cordoba, Algeciras (Morocco and Gibraltar), and Sevilla. Essentially you can cover the whole Andalusia hotspot from the town.

The main dolmen sites are within walking distance of the city. You can also spot the mountain with a face from the dolmen sites.

If you …

WH Travellers who have visited or are planning a visit to the Antequera Dolmen might be interested in a couple of “mysteries” concerning what they saw/will see which haven’t as yet been raised in any review and, in one case, isn’t even mentioned in the Nomination file! They arose during our visit in May 18 and have been supplemented by a degree of extra investigation on my part since our return.

As you climb from the visitor centre up to the Viera Dolmen you will pass a modern plaza titled the “Centro Solar de Michael Hoskin”. It contains a sun dial and a bust of said man. Born in 1930, he is an eminent British Archaeo-Astronomer, “one of the pioneers and driving forces behind Archaeo-astronomy” who has spent many years studying prehistoric sites in Europe/the Mediterranean area with reference to their astronomical orientation. This article gives an impression of the “esteem” in which he is held in Antequera and the extent to which he is credited with identifying the factors which enabled its dolmens to gain WHS status. As a point of trivia - he also has a “Minor Planet” named after him - “12223 Hoskin”! 

The Nomination File states - “one should note - according to studies conducted by Dr. Michael Hoskin, professor emeritus of History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University and one of the pioneers and driving forces of Archaeoastronomy - that over 95% of the dolmens in Europe …

I visited this WHS in September 2017 en route to Ubeda and Baeza. It is only 45 minutes away from Malaga airport and for the time being is completely free of charge.

The tholos' architecture is very similar to the later ones in Mycenae, Greece and is the most iconic of the lot. Its location is in the middle of an industrial estate and dump but in a way these eyesores are now guarded by an enclosure of trees which reminded me of the idyllic landscape of Val d'Orcia, Italy.

Coming from Malaga, it makes sense to see this site first and afterwards head towards Antequera proper to visit the Conjunto Arqueologico Dolmenes de Antequera and the Menga and Viera Dolmens. The latter is nothing more than a stone tunnel with a broken dolmen entrance while the former is actually a burial mound or tumulus with a dolmen entrance and a supported roof (photo). It is quite similar to some of the dolmens of Malta and Gozo but only made up of one chamber and covered. From here you get a gorgeous view of olive groves and the Pena de los Enamorados which might have been considered sacred in Neolithic times. From the dolmen, the Pena de los Enamorados looks like the face of man lying down.

Although I enjoyed the El Torcal nature reserve for its incredible karst formations and some birdwatching, I think there is no link to the dolmen sites.

Having visited several Neolithic sites, the ones …

The Antequera Dolmens were the fourth prehistoric European WHS that I visited in the past 4 weeks. After the Ice Age Art Caves, Neolithic Orkney and Gorham’s Cave I was not terribly keen on checking out another one. But well, this was an orphan site that I had left ‘to tick off’ not far from Malaga Airport from where I would be flying home after the WH Travellers Meeting. So on a Sunday morning, I drove out there from La Linea, in a little less than two hours. The WHS consists of 5 different features, all located in or around the mid-size Andalusian city of Antequera.

Antequera comes with a few pleasant surprises. The first is that it rightly is part of our Free Entrance connection: none of the locations charge an entry fee. The sites are far from unkept though. The locations of Menga/Viera dolmen, El Torcal and El Romeral are all at least manned by security and in the case of the first two, they also have a small visitor center with staff, and parking lots and toilets.

Another positive is that one can only admire the state of conservation (or reconstruction) and the size of these megalithic structures. According to ICOMOS, the “number, size, weight and volume of stone blocks transported and assembled in the basin of Antequera, …, makes the Antequera Dolmens one of the most important engineering and architectural works of European Prehistory”. It did impress me a lot more than Neolithic Orkney …

My interest for megalithic sites was aroused during a visit to Carnac in 2015, so the inscription of the Antequera Dolmens in 2016 was perfect timing to include the site in the itinerary for our Andalusia trip in September. The Antequera Dolmens WHS comprises five sites at four locations: three dolmens and two natural landmarks closely linked to the megalithic monuments.

The Dolmen de Viera and the Dolmen de Menga are located just outside Antequera on a small hill overlooking olive groves and with the view to the Pena de los Enamorados, one of the natural sites of this WHS. The visit starts in the reception centre with a short film explaining the technique that was presumably used to built the dolmens. We also learned that the landscape has significantly changed since the dolmens were built. It is believed that there were a number of lakes and ponds and forest around the tombs. Today it is the typical Andalusian landscape: dry and barren, olives seem to be the only fruit growing there.

The Menga Dolmen impresses by its size, the oval interior is several metres wide and more than three metres high, you can stand upright everywhere. The side walls consist of massive stone blocks and the covering slabs are supported by three pillars. The largest stone is estimated to be 180 tons, much heavier than the largest stone in Stonehenge. Thus, it is quite obvious why the period is named "megalithic" (mega = large, lithos = stone). …