Arca da Piosa

Discover the Arca da Piosa, one of the most impressive and legendary dolmens on the Costa da Morte.

Máis información sobre Arca da Piosa

This dolmen is one of the jewels of Galician megalithism, dated around the third millennium BC. It preserves four of the five orthostats that made up the polygonal chamber and part of the original roof, with a monumentality that speaks of the importance of the site for Neolithic communities. As early as the nineteenth century, it attracted the attention of early archaeologists and was studied in detail by researcher G. Leisner in 1933.

In addition to its architectural value, it is shrouded in legends passed down orally over the centuries. The poet Eduardo Pondal famously believed that under his stones rests the Celtic warrior Brandomil. The magnitude of its slabs, some of more than 35 tons, makes us think of the techniques and collective effort used by the ancient inhabitants of the area to erect this enigmatic monument.

To get there, we will have to turn off to the place of Comaneiro and there take a mountain track that leads us to a portal that leads to a forest farm. Once we have crossed the portal, we take the first track on the right. After a mile we arrived at the dolmen. It is very well preserved despite its 5,000 years old.

It retains four of the five polygonal chamber stones and two of the small corridor on the lower plane. The corridor is short and oriented to the east, at sunrise. It will be 5 meters long. There is no clear differentiation between the camera and the corridor either in plan or elevation. This ark weighs 35 tons, so it is assumed that 110 men would have been needed, according to the techniques of the time, to drag it, if they did it without bearings. This cave was already known to archaeologists in the nineteenth century. In his particular epic, the poet Eduardo Pondal placed here the tomb of the Celtic warrior Brandomil.

In the Museum of the Galician People, in Compostela they have a model of the Ark of the Piosa but without any remains collected in it.

Show More Text