Orca da Matança
The Orca da Matança (or Orca das Corgas da Matança) is a dolmen , which, according to the Portuguese term, is called Anta . The graceful megalithic complex, which is fenced in and has a display board, is located east of Viseu near Fornos de Algodres in the Beira Alta .
The Orca da Matança was excavated and restored between 1988 and 1989. The bearing stones at the side of the entrance were erected again. The broken upper half of the forehead stone was put on. The Orca, like the nearby Anta da Cunha Baixa, is a good example of a so-called "pillar grave" or a "wide chamber", whose chambers are wider than long in the axial direction. The chamber is about 4.0 m wide, 3.2 m long and almost 3.0 m high. The great width is achieved by two pillars that stand on either side of the front stone and form the wider rear wall.
The nine bearing stones, about four meters long, are sunk into the ground by over one meter. Two bearing stones are decorated. One has an incised serpentine contour. The second is decorated with pecked flat decorations, which are so badly eroded that they are difficult to interpret. The excavations did not reveal any evidence of a lithic passage.
Like almost all systems on the Iberian Peninsula, the facility was ransacked and damaged in the Middle Ages . A microlith , two arrowheads and two axes made of flint , a stone bead , the shards of a hemispherical shell and an anthropomorphic idol made of Gagat were also found . The finds point to the construction of the complex in the Neolithic ( stone axes ) and subsequent use during the Copper Age (idol, arrowheads with a concave base).
The Anta Cortiçô de Algodres is about a kilometer to the east . Nearby is the Forcadas necropolis .
literature
- 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. 97, no. 93.
Coordinates: 40 ° 40 ′ 7.9 ″ N , 7 ° 31 ′ 57.9 ″ W.