Anta pintada from Antelas

The Anta pintada of Antelas (the painted Anta of Antelas - also called Dólmen pintado de Antelas ) is located in the village of Antelas, in the municipality of Pinheiro de Lafões , west of the capital of the district, Oliveira de Frades ( Viseu district , Centro region ) in Portugal . The dolmen has been known in specialist circles since 1956 for its extensive paintings on the bearing stones. Anta is the Portuguese name for around 5000 megalithic structures or dolmens, which were built during the Neolithic in the west of the Iberian Peninsula by the successors of the cardial or imprint culture .

A covered corridor leads to the chamber made up of eight rows of roof-tile-like, overlapping, comparatively thin orthostats. An oval forecourt was exposed during the restoration.

The paintings inside the monument are probably the best preserved in the Iberian Peninsula . The facility was restored between 1992 and 1995. For the first time in Portugal a dating based on organic substances in the pigments of the paintings was successful. The ¹⁴ C date is between 3625 and 3140 BC. Data from layers of the forecourt refer to the time between 3900 and 3700 BC. BC, so that the chamber can be dated to the first half of the 4th millennium. That was the heyday of megalithics in the Beira Alta . Finds include a blade, 22 microliths and six stone axes .

Fleming considers the representation to be sceuomorphs of curtains.

literature

Luís de Albuquerque e Castro, OV Ferreira, A. Viana: O Dólmen Pintado de Antelas (Oliveira de Frades) . In: Comunicações dos Serviços Geológicos de Portugal . tape 38 , 1957, ISSN 0037-2730 , pp. 325-346 .
Thomas G. Schattner (Ed.): Archaeological guide through Portugal (= cultural history of the ancient world . Vol. 74). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1998, ISBN 3-8053-2313-1 p. 94

Individual evidence

↑ Description and pictures on celtiberia.net (Portuguese)
↑ Andrew Fleming: The Myth of the Mother-Goddess. In: World Archeology, Techniques of Chronology and Excavation. 1/2, 1969, p. 255, ( JSTOR 123965 ).

Web links

Image of Anta de Antelas on celtiberia.net
Description and pictures on celtiberia.net (Portuguese)
O Dólmen de Antelas ( Memento of June 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (Portuguese)
Rotas do Património: Photos da Anta Pintada de Antelas ( Memento of December 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (Portuguese)
Description Engl. and pictures

40.7125 -8.2438888888889Coordinates: 40 ° 42 ′ 45 " N , 8 ° 14 ′ 38" W.

[1] Description and pictures on celtiberia.net (Portuguese)

[2] Andrew Fleming: The Myth of the Mother-Goddess. In: World Archeology, Techniques of Chronology and Excavation. 1/2, 1969, p. 255, ( JSTOR 123965 ).