Galicia Tourist Guide 2018

Cruceiro at Combarro. Poio

Dolmen of Axeitos. Ribeira

Parque Arqueolóxico da Arte Rupestre de Campo Lameiro

tion thereof in all of Europe. Though there are magnificent examples of this stone sculpture art throughout Galicia, the meaning of the figures represented there (spirals, circles, labyrinths, geometric symbols) re- mains unknown. Did you know that the legends claim that under the dolmens built out of large slabs of stone there are buried treasures? Although no one has been able to con- firm this, these Neolithic construc- tions are associated with burials and funeral rites. You will surely notice the Dolmenof Dombate , of themost spec-

tacular and which is part of the muse- umspace, due to its imposing size. When Rome colonised the Iberian Peninsula, they found that in the land known today as Galicia the people lived in hill-forts, testimony of our Celtic past. Always forti- fied, they tended to build in higher altitude areas for protection and lookout purposes, though it was also believed that be- ing nestled in places higher up would put the people in closer contact with the gods. Some of the ones that have been best preserved include Santa Trega, San Cibrao de Las, Viladonga and Baroña.

PETROGLYPHS, DOLMENS AND HILL-FORTS

From the pre-Roman era we have stony vestiges that tell of long-ago times, stone carvings that hold the key to the mystery of their meaning, strikingmegalithic constructions and walled villages high up in the hills or at the water's edge, but always in a strategic place for defence. At the Parque Arqueolóxico da Arte Rupestre de Campo Lameiro [Campo Lameiro Stone Art Archaeo- logical Park], visitors can wend their way along a path that runs amid 80 petroglyphs , the highest concentra-

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