ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS 



At Fonte Coberta on the Douro stands a 

 magnificent dolmen known locally as the Moors' 

 House. In the name of the field, Fonte Coberta, 

 there is doubtless an allusion to the belief that the 

 dolmens conceal springs of water, a belief also 

 held in parts of Ireland. 



At Eguilaz in the Basque provinces is a fine 

 corridor-tomb, in which a passage 20 feet long, 

 roofed with flat slabs, leads to a rectangular 

 chamber 13 feet by 15 with an immense cover- 

 slab nearly 20 feet in length : the whole was 

 covered with a mound of earth. The chamber 

 contained human bones and " lanceheads of stone 

 and bronze." A famous tomb of a similar type 

 exists at Marcella in Algarve. The chamber is a 

 fine circle of upright slabs. It is paved with 

 stones, and part of its area is divided into two 

 or perhaps three rectangular compartments. A 

 couple of orthostatic slabs form a sort of neck 

 joining the circle to the passage, which narrows 

 as it leads away from the circle, and was probably 

 divided into two sections by a doorway whose side- 

 posts still remain. 



In South-East Spain the brothers Siret have 

 found corridor-tombs in which the chamber is 

 cut in the rock surface and roofed with slabs ; 

 the entrance passage becomes a slope or a stair- 

 case. Here we have a parallel to the Giants' 

 Graves of Sardinia, which are built usually of 

 stone blocks on the surface, but occasionally are 



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