Actions in the study and enhancement of the megalithic heritage at Vouzela (Viseu). The rehabilitation project of the Lapa da Meruje dolmen

EasyChair Preprint 5942

Abstract

Various actions in the inventory, scientific study and enhancement of the important megalithic heritage of Vouzela are taking place since 2016 within the framework of research projects approved by the Portuguese Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage. Due to this multiplicity of actions and the conservationist principles underlying these projects, intrusive archaeological interventions have been minimalist and carried out only on endangered monuments or on those for which there has been political (municipal) ​​initiative and means for their enhancement. Among those actions, it should be highlighted the creation in 2019 of the municipal route "Stone Giants. Cultural Route of Vouzela Megalithism" and in 2021 the process for classification and rehabilitation of the Lapa da Meruje dolmen.

This is one of the largest dolmens in the region, having been tested in 1917, in a very limited area of ​​the chamber, by Amorim Girão. It is located in the beautifull setting of a mid-slope platform in the NW quadrant of Serra do Caramulo, next to the confluence of two streams that are today dammed. The work started in 2016 and focused on the dolmen's chamber, corridor and forecourt where it was possible to identify a “condemnation structure” that sealed the monument in the passage from the 4th to the 3rd millennium BC, after its construction in the beginning of the former millennium. This is an architecturally complex monument. It has a chamber formed by nince orthostats and a 9 m long corridor, surrounded by a buttress. There are schematic Neolithic engravings in the chamber and corridor. The mound is 32 m in diameter and 2 m height, and was covered with a stone layer.

The objective of the intervention, scheduled for the Summer of 2021, is twofold: to obtain more scientific data on the monument and to create conditions to allow its fruition by the public, along with the rehabilitation of the local structures for visitors that exist since 1999.

Keyphrases: Megalithism., Project., Rehabilitation., Vouzela.

@booklet{EasyChair:5942,
  author    = {António Carvalho and Aníbal Costa},
  title     = {Actions in the study and enhancement of the megalithic heritage at Vouzela (Viseu). The rehabilitation project of the Lapa da Meruje dolmen},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 5942},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}