Antequera Dolmens Site

The Antequera Dolmens Site is a cultural heritage ensemble comprising three cultural monuments (the Dolmen of Menga, Dolmen of Viera and Tholos of El Romeral) and 2 natural mountain features (the Peña de los Enamorados and El Torcal) in and near the city of Antequera in Andalusia, Spain [1]. The cultural institution responsible for its protection is the CADA [1]. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 2016 [1]. Both the Dolmen of Menga and the Tholos of El Romeral have anomalous orientations [1]. The archaeoastronomer Michael Hoskin, who studied the site, noted that, whereas the axes of almost all dolmens around the Mediterranean are oriented to a celestial feature, such as sunrise at dawn on the equinoxes (as occurs in the Dolmen of Viera), the Dolmen of Menga points to the striking nearby peak called the Peña de los Enamorados [1]. This rises abruptly from the plain and contains the contemporaneous rock shelter of Matacabras, in which cave paintings are found [1].