THE MEGALITHIC REMAINS OF MENGA, VIERA AND ROMERAL, DISCOVERED NEAR ANTEQUERA, ARE ONE OF THE MOST VALUABLE FUNERARY MONUMENTS OF EUROPE. THESE PRIMITIVE PANTHEONS ARE EVIDENT PROOF THAT DEATH, 5,000 YEARS AGO, WAS ALREADY THE MOST POWERFUL MYSTERY FOR HUMANS.

It could be that Antequera owes its name to the Dolmens of Menga, Viera and Romeral; because the Romans called ir "Antiqaria" as they considered it to be quite ancient, and that antiquity could well have been based on these ancestral tombs.
Menga is the largest and best preserved dolmen of Europe. This primitive mausoleum is a group of boulders distributed vertically in three rows, twenty on the sides forming walls and three in the centre as supporting pillars.
The maximum height is 4 metres, 6 metres wide and 25 metres in length. All this holds up five enormous slabs that form the celling, the last of which weighs some 180.000 kilos. This dolmen is an extraordinary remains of megalithic culture.
The age of these three catacombs ranges between 4.500 and 5.000 years. To have a rough idea: they were built around the same time as the pyramids of Egypt. The first question that pops into our mind when we find out how old they are is; how could something like this have been done 2.800 years before Christ? Studies reveal that it took an army of workers and artists, over a long period of time. The process of extracting and moving the stone blocks from the Veracurz quarry, located several kilometres away, must have been thought up by true master engineers.
The Viera dolmen, in spite of being smaller than Menga, boasts a more perfect construction.
The Romeral, the "youngest" of the three, is the most evolved of the group. As a curious fact, we must highlight the incredibly precise connection between Menga and the sun, as the first ray of light of the summer solstice penetrates directly into the interior of this dolmen, thus announcing the beginning of summer.
Its lugubrious greatness captivated Gustae Doré when he visited the dolmens along with the adventurer Varon Davilier, and greatly moved doctor Amadou Mathar m'Bow when he was the general director of the UNESCO. The most spectacular dolmen of Europe buries in Antequera the history of the first settlers of the West and revives the instinctive terror that we have always had of the Otherworld.

Useful information

How to get there: Take the A-92 to the Antequera turnoff, then, take the N-334 until you reach km. 159-160.

What to see: The Real Colegiata de Santa María La Mayor; the Alcazaba (also called Castle of Papabellotas); The Arch of the Giants; the Carmen Convent; the Collegiate Church of San Sebastian; the Convent of San Agustín; the El Torcal area or the Fuente de Piedra Lagoon.