One of the items that the Alentejo is known for is megalithic sites, particularly around Evora. About a 20 minute drive away is Almendres Megalithic settlement (also called a cromlech). This circle of rocks is similar to Stonehenge, however, this site pre-dates Stonehenge by 2000 years.
Stonehenge is inundated with hundreds of tourists at once, and you have to stay about 100 yards away on a path. We were the only ones here, and you can freely walk among the rocks (they just ask that you don’t climb them).
Here is a depiction of the layout as well as info on markings. We could only find the markings on one of the stones, so the rest must have been picked up via some kind of spectography.
The next site we visited was a simple Menhir. This stone aligned with the circle of stones to create an alignment with the summer solstice. Not quite sure how they did this, as we could not see one site from the other. Perhaps there were a lot fewer trees 7000 years ago? Again, we were the only ones here.
This reminded me of the monolith from 2001, so here I am doing my best job at acting like prehistoric man, in awe of the monolith.
Our final stop was Anta Grande do Zambujerio, which is a megalithic funerary where the dead were placed with various belongings. This, along with the original megalithic Almendres, were buried until their discovery in the the 1960’s. Once again, all by ourselves at this site.
This is looking down into the funerary.
The artifacts that were found were given to the Evora Museum.
These are examples of schists. I didn’t get a photo of those from the museum. They apparently found hundreds of these in the funerary. They are designed for specific people who were placed there. The more ornate, the more important the person.
