A 7,000-year-old sacred site for prehistoric star-gazers and worshippers: the Almendres Cromlech near Évora in Alentejo, Portugal. The megalithic complex of stone circles, known as The Portuguese Stonehenge, is at least 2,000 years older than that world-famous monument in Wiltshire, England.
Almendres Cromlech, Évora, Alentejo Central, Portugal: thousands of years ago, these massive granite boulders at the “Portuguese Stonehenge” must have witnessed the prehistoric people who arranged them in concentric circles conducting sacred rituals related to their observation of the sun, moon and stars. Some rounded megaliths or menhirs at the Cromeleque dos Almendres (Cromlech of the Almonds) are still carved with incised lines and symbolic shapes curved like snakes, croziers or shepherds’ crooks. The carvings probably relate to astronomical observation and religious worship at the 7,000-year-old site, one of the earliest and largest prehistoric complexes in Europe. Evidence that the cromlech was used for rudimentary astronomy is clear. About 5,000 years ago, many of the Almendres megaliths were moved to new sites to better align them with heavenly bodies, and at least one stone has man-made holes or dimples in its top that, if filled with stones, could have been used to observe the spring equinox. A tall megalith standing apart from the rest, the Almendres Menhir, would have pointed to the summer solstice sunrise when seen from the main monument. The cromlech near Évora is about 2,000 years older than Stonehenge, the unique UNESCO World Heritage site on England’s Salisbury Plain. An initial small stone circle was set up at Almendres during the Early Neolithic or Early Stone Age, with larger, elliptical rings of stones built about 1,000 years later to the west. The cromlech was discovered as recently as 1964, by amateur archaeologist Henrique Leonor de Pina (1930-2018). Excavations showed that it once consisted of at least 100 megaliths, most shaped like eggs or almonds, of which about 95 remain in place today. They vary greatly in size, with some more than meters ( ft) tall.
Size: 7360px × 4912px
Location: Almendres Cromlech, Évora, Alentejo Central, Portugal
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
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