Antequera - Dolmen de Viera

The Antequera Dolmens Site is an ensemble comprising the Dolmen of Menga, the Dolmen of Viera and the Tholos of El Romeral. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 2016 and has a museum, where artefacts excavetd here are exhibited.

The dating of the Dolmen de Viera is unclear, but it is assumed to be between 4500 and 5500 years old. The Dolmen de Viera was discovered in 1903/05 by the brothers Antonio and José Viera and bears their name.

The tumulus of the Dolmen de Viera has a diameter of about 50 metres. A corridor leads into the interior of the hill and faces east-southeast i.e. roughly at the highest point of the sun in June, whose rays then still illuminate the corridor at dawn.

The corridor to the burial chamber was built from precisely hewn and joined large stone blocks. Five of the capstones are still intact and two are incomplete. The corridor is about 1.30 meters wide in the front area, and 1.60 meters wide at the burial chamber. The average height is just over 2 meters. It ends at a transverse megalithic stone, in the middle of which there is a rectangular opening measuring about 60 × 80 centimeters, which is sometimes also called a soul hole. Behind it is a square burial chamber that is only slightly larger than the corridor.