Another Neolithic Monument

Also near Almandres was a pre-historic cromlech dating from about the 5th millennia BC and we visited the site late one fine afternoon with the sun beginning to set in the west. Located high above the surrounding plains it was awe-inspiring and maybe 2000 years earlier than Stonehenge.

The diagram shown here locates the large number of stones, and explains five of them that appear to have neolithic carvings on the surfaces. Because of their great age, most of the rest of the stones have lost any drawings or inscriptions they may have had. Numbers one and two are shown below after a few general views of the site.

This stone is number 1 in the diagram and the second below it is number 2. The first has two feint circles towards the base - for which no meaning is known, and the second has a large vertical crack clearly visible. Its meaning is also lost to posterity.

One more picture is worth adding. This region has huge number of cork oaks which are still used to make stoppers for wine bottles, personal artefacts like key-rings (I bought two of those), purses and spectacles cases. The bark is stripped off low down once in every decade and then allowed to regenerate. Many of the trees I've seen have a number written on the trunk and those around the cromlech had the number 1. This means the bark was stripped in 2011.

AS