The Dolmen of Menga
A visit to one of the largest known ancient megalithic structures in Europe
Rome ruled Spain (aka ‘Hispania’) for a very long time, but, of course, Spain’s history did not start with the Romans. Spain has a very deep historic well from which to draw, and dipping the bucket into that water will yield a myriad of discoveries. One of the items that I pulled up during my Spanish spelunking adventures was dolmens, and right away, I was intrigued. The pile of rocks that I was reading about was called “The Dolmen of Menga,” and it was something that I could visit in person, so I put them on my 2004 travel itinerary.
Dolmens were Neolithic burial tombs, and they tend to dot the landscape like man-size molehills. I had never seen a dolmen in person before as they are usually located in far-flung places that mass transit never goes to. The Dolmen of Menga, however, was surprisingly accessible. I took a train from Seville to an adorable little town called Antequera, from where I walked to the dolmen in about 20 minutes.
I was the only tourist to show up at 11:00 am, and I was pleasantly surprised that there was actually a tour guide loafing around that held the keys to the locked iron gate. I asked her if it was possible to let me inside the dolmen, but she rebuffed my request as if it was not worth her time to do the tour for only one person. I stood there, dejected, and looked longingly at the massive heap of rocks that sheltered so much mystery.
“Por faaavooor?” I pleaded.
A long moment of silence passed as we did a most quiet stand-off.
She uttered something in Spanish as she scuttled up the hill to unlock the iron gate of the nearly five-thousand-year-old tomb, and I made sure that I was right behind her. Once inside the tomb, she went straight into her fast-talking spiel in Spanish, describing the tomb’s details to me. I had absolutely no idea what she was saying, and I tried telling her that, but I think that she believed that if I listened to her talk in Spanish, I would somehow magically learn the language. Her voice got a little louder after I told her that I didn’t understand, but that, of course, didn’t help me understand her any better. I really just wanted to enjoy the megalithic tomb in silence, but that was going to be impossible. I had to find that delicate balance of feigned interest in what she was saying while actually tuning her out to properly enjoy this most amazing sacred space.
I was standing inside a tomb that was conceived by the Neolithic mind. The people of five thousand years ago definitely thought differently. No one thinks in terms of large standing rocks anymore. Why did Neolithic man find it so necessary to build with monumental boulders? I think it is because humans like to think big. Since concrete wasn’t invented yet, Neolithic man went after nature’s ready-made material. They would go long distances searching for the perfect boulder and then expend a significant amount of effort in lugging the boulder clear across the land to its designated resting spot, which usually entailed installing it in some gravity-defying position. In other words, it was no small feat to create a megalithic structure. The tombs were built to be the final resting place for those that were, I assume, important. Who earned a spot in that tomb, I wondered? For how many years was a tomb used? A generation? Several generations? Hundreds of generations? Thousands of generations? Who was the last one to have been laid to rest in this one? When did the culture that built this tomb decide that it was time to walk away from it and forget that it ever existed?
The tombs that Neolithic man built lasted longer than life itself. Was placing a body in a tomb a way of symbolically allowing someone to live on forever? How integral were the dolmens to the Neolithic religion? I would love to see what their rituals looked like. What did their songs sound like? What musical instruments did they use? How did they illuminate their night and push aside the darkness? What kind of crazy makeup did they paint on their faces? How long did their rituals last?
The space inside a dolmen was safer than anyplace else in the Neolithic world. There was a sense of protection being inside a room built of giant rocks. Many dolmens were built into hillsides that tunneled deep into the bowels of the earth. This was their spirit realm. This is where they went to when it was time to return to their origins. They were indeed the original children of the earth.
thanx for reading!
