The Dombate dolmen is a monument from the Neolithic era located in the Borneiro parish, in the Galician municipality of Cabana de Bergantiños . This dolmen is classified as a collective corridor tomb and is considered the "cathedral of megalithism" in Galicia.
Near this site, there are other monuments known as wall art or rock art .
This tumulus was established in the first half of the IV millennium BC. C. , and the camera at the end of that same period. It was used at different times, between 3800 BC. C. and 2700 a. C., moment in which it was abandoned.
It should be noted that in the 19th century , the Galician historian Manuel Murguía already referred to the dolmen and that in 1885 the poet Eduardo Pondal immortalized it in the poem Queixumes dos Pinos :
Past Vilaseco, a place beaten by air
not high on the coast of Uces de montesía canle;
past Vilaseco, indo pola Gandra adiante,
xa via from lonxe or dolmen de Dombate.
Eduardo Pondal (1885).
The burial mound is about 24 meters in diameter and 1.80 m high, and consists of a layer of earth partially covered by a stone shell formed by flat stones deposited horizontally (which mark the perimeter of the site), and prominent and well-placed stones inside.
It was suspected that originally, the mound covered up to the height of the corridor, and that the most prominent part or dolmen was in sight.
The dolmen consists of a wide polygonal chamber formed by seven ortostats , one of which measures 4.64 x 3 m, and a corridor with three sections, well differentiated in plan and section. The entrance was closed with a vertical stone covered slab. Elongated slabs were placed on the outside between some orthostats (or orthostats), in order to help close the gap. The pits in which these large stones were supported reached depths of 140 centimeters in the chamber and 70 cm in the corridor.
On the known burial mound, there was a megalith earlier in time, smaller and less complex, consisting of a simple, elongated and open chamber, made up of nine ortostats measuring approximately 240x190 cm. The corresponding and previous burial mound was 10.5 m in diameter, and was covered by a shell of a single layer of stones.
It is interesting to note that in the initial segment of the corridor of the most recent burial mound, 20 small idols were found , and that the ortostats of the corresponding chamber contain petroglyphs . In addition, all the slabs, both in the chamber and in the corridor, have paintings. These are distributed in two horizontal registers separated by a reddish strip of red and black points, the whole being a composition in which geometricity prevails (zigzags, vertical and oblique stripes, wavy, reticles, etc.). The red color was obtained from iron oxide and the black from charcoal , possibly applied on a white primer from some type of grease mixed with kaolin.
A row of idols was also found, twenty in total, placed in front of the corridor and on the edge of the burial mound, as well as very interesting lithic and ceramic artifacts.
In 2009 it was discovered that the chamber had a drainage which makes one suspect that from the beginning it suffered from water floods.
Studies on the Dombate dolmen suggest that it was used at four different times:
Period 1: corresponds to that of its creation, which occurred between 3800 BC. C. and 3600 a. During the second half of the fourth millennium and the first two-thirds of the third, only corridor dolmens were built ;
Period 2: c. 3000 BC C., opportunity during which the access area was prepared and used for the first time;
Period 3: c. 2700 BC C., when the corridor was finally closed, beginning the ritual use there;
Period 4: last period of use, possibly coinciding with the bell-shaped vessel culture .
Later a town was built, already in the Bronze Age , next to the disused dolmen.
The site was excavated by the archaeologist José María Bello Diéguez in 1987, 1988 and 1989. After these excavations the paintings and the monument in general suffered a process of degradation due to the passivity of different administrations . In order to know the state in which it had remained in 2001, a committee was set up to report it, on whose first visit days later they discovered that the damage was irreparable and that part of the archaeological remains had been lost, mainly the old dolmen on the that lay the current one, as well as the ground witness of the excavation. A few months later, the deputation of La Coruña decided to replace the plastic roof, very deteriorated, and fence the 8000 m²of the plot where the monument is located. At the beginning of 2002 the new closure was ready, which would be the one that will last until the final closure of 2011.
In 2004, a plan of 600,000 euros was prepared for the enhancement of the monument, which months later was expanded to one million and which planned to expose it and recover it in about two years, even going so far as to create a website for it from the moment of the ad, with what they wanted to "make it unique." However, it was never carried out.
In 2009 archaeological excavations of the dolmen and the surrounding land were carried out, and also in that year the works were awarded to a company to carry out the definitive musealization of the dolmen and its surroundings within a period of ten months and with a budget of more than one million and half of euros.
In 2011 the cover that protects the dolmen from the elements was completed, although restoration and study work continued. This presentation to the visitor, together with the fact that the intervention implied altering the situation encountered, has received criticism for subtracting historical criteria from the whole.
In 2012 a replica of the camera was inaugurated.
In 2014, after the start of municipal management by the Cabana de Bergantiños City Council, serious flaws appeared in the replica (neodolmen), and the Provincial Council of A Coruña received a request for the collaboration agreement to be suspended, the state of the original paintings revised and the establishment of a maximum number of visitors to the monument to favor its conservation.
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