Despite the best efforts of many ancient cultures, you can’t take it with you – and if you were ever in doubt, the bones and stones of Evora will explain it to you.
The subject of death’s inevitability seemed to follow us as we spent four days in and around Evora – a small city east of Lisbon, Portugal, in the Alentejo [south of the Tejo River] region.
But rather than a sombre or creepy or chilling atmosphere, I found it enlightening, especially when I put my imagination to work, trying to enter the headspace of the Paleolithic hunters, Neolithic farmers, and 17th-century monks who created symbolic monuments.
A cave with paintings and engravings doubled as a necropolis. A megalithic dolmen also held bodies, along with the tools and ornaments they needed in the afterlife. Mighty menhirs and stone circles celebrated the passage of time. Finally, the Chapel of Bones tied everything together, with its exhortation to face the reality of death and ponder how you live your life in the meantime.
These sites raised more questions than I had answers for.
Cave of Escoural
Photos are no longer allowed in the Gruta do Escoural. These images are screenshots from a long but informative video by the Alentejo Regional Directorate of Culture.
Our guide at the Gruta do Escoural [Cave of Escoural] handed out hair nets and helmets, then warned us to duck our heads and get our imaginations in gear.
“It’s not Da Vinci and you have to imagine,” she said. “People who come after lunch [like us!] have more imagination than those who come in the morning.”
The rocky ceiling required us to crouch low in a few spots as we descended the stairs into the cave, discovered in 1963 by some quarry workers. They had stumbled upon one of the most significant caves in Portugal, with about 100 paintings and engravings created between 25,000 and 10,000 years BCE (Before Common Era, or Before Christ).
In the late Paleolithic era, hunter-gatherers painted and engraved the large animals they hunted: rhinoceros, horse, auroque (the now-extinct ancestors of cows) and deer, according to an information panel. People used the cave on and off over many millennia. In the Neolithic period, people buried their dead there. Archeologists found abundant piles of bones, plus offerings of pottery, polished stone axes, blades for knives and awls, and ornamental beads. Were they trying to take material goods with them to the afterlife?
Our guide shone her flashlight on some dark lines on the cave wall. I couldn’t decipher what they depicted until she pointed out the lines of two heads in profile, each animal headed in opposite directions.
Vein-like ridges of dripping limestone that hardened perhaps 10,000 years ago cover some of the paintings, so they must be older than that.
“It wasn’t as simple as scrubbing with a rock on the wall,” said our guide. If the painters had done that, water would have wiped away their images long ago. Instead, they crushed pigments from red ochre and black charcoals, and mixed in animal fat.
“It’s more like oil painting,” she said. “These people actually invented paint.”
She traced the outlines of what could be an auroque or unicorn, and some more-obvious horses.
Why were they painted or etched into the rock in the first place? No one really knows. Some believe the images honour the animals people hunted for their livelihoods; the cave was a sacred place where people could honour and thank their deity. Of course, some visitors have insisted aliens or the Illuminati (a secret society) created the art, said our guide. She’s heard it all. More investigation are needed, but that takes money and the skill of hurdling Portuguese bureaucracy.
Finally, her light found the round lip of a ceramic pot embedded in the rock next to several human bones. They’ve been dated to 6,000 to 3,000 BCE, in the Neolithic era – a similar age as the megalithic monuments we were about to see – so are much newer than the paintings and engravings.
Perhaps people used the cave as a cemetery because it had already been decorated. Like being buried in an art gallery. Not such a bad idea.
Megalithic adventure day
Along with our friends Kate and Sean, we headed out of Evora on our megalithic adventure day, off to see menhirs, a dolmen, and a standing-stone circle that’s older than Britain’s Stonehenge or Egypt’s pyramids.
Cool. But what are all these things? My head swam from all the “lith” words and the types of monuments. Here is the primer that helped me:
- Megaliths: enormous stones used to construct prehistoric monuments. “Lith” means “stone.” We visited three types of megalithic monuments:
- Menhir: a single upright enormous stone.
- Cromlech: a circle or semi-circle of big upright stones.
- Dolmen: a burial chamber made of huge upright stones.
- Paleolithic: the oldest stone age, 1.4 million years ago to roughly 10,000 BCE, when people were hunter-gatherers and moved around. The Gruta do Escoural was painted and engraved in later Paleolithic times.
- Neolithic: the new stone age, roughly 7,000 to 2,000 years BCE in Europe (it varies around the world), when humans settled down into permanent dwellings with domesticated animals and grew crops. Neolithic humans built megalithic monuments all around Evora.
We followed rolling country roads like ribbons set between the cork trees. Wildflowers bloomed, the sun shone – it was a glorious day to step back thousands of years and ponder the whys. Why would people haul these enormous stones over considerable distances and heave them into standing positions? Why form standing-stone circles? How were they used? Was it part of their religion?
We found some answers at the Almendres Interpretation Centre, just outside the village of Nossa Senhora de Guadalupe. The megaliths represent a significant time in human history, when people became pastoral farmers who stayed put.
“It is one of the biggest changes in our existence as a species, not only from an economic point of view but also from a social and cultural point of view,” said the centre’s website.
Neolithic people not only domesticated animals and plants, but also the landscape around them. I hadn’t realized that all those cork forests we had passed had their roots with Neolithic people: after they cut down the virgin forests, they began planting trees, including cork trees.
The Evora area has hundreds of megalithic sites (many on private land) because the landscape attracted people to settle there. Three major rivers provided a crossing point in fertile land and the area had astronomical significance on the solstices and equinoxes.
Almendres Menhir
A rutted path through wildflowers led us to the Almendres Menhir.
We followed a deeply rutted path to a tall, elongated-egg-shaped standing stone – the Almendres Menhir, that dates from the early to middle Neolithic period. We walked circled the megalith several times, inspecting it closely from top to bottom, but couldn’t see the shepherd’s staff that’s supposed to be carved on it.
Most menhirs have a low-relief carving on them: wavy lines, a shepherd’s staff, crescent moons, rectangles and circles. The staff, in particular, was a symbol of power in many Mediterranean cultures, according to an information panel, because the crook at the tip was used to handle and control animals. We did, however, see lots of cool lichen that were probably covering the carving.
It’s aligned with the Almendres Cromlech, which we set off to visit next.
Almendres Cromlech
Two stone circles of lichen-covered standing stones make up the Almendres Cromlech.
We slowly bounced over the deeply eroded dirt road to the end and then walked a bit further to the Almendres Cromlech, whose significance was only recognized in 1964, when most of the stones had toppled over. During archeological research from the 1970s to the 1990s, the stones were restored to what was thought to be their original positions, forming a large oval, with a smaller circle attached, somewhat like a two-ball snowman.
Like other stone circles, this cromlech is on an eastern slope facing the rising sun and the Almendres Menhir. On the summer solstice, Neolithic people standing in the cromlech would have looked toward the menhir, which indicated exactly where the sun would rise on the longest day of the year.
Clearly the changing seasons, the equinoxes and solstices, were so important that people went to considerable lengths to arrange these stones about 7,000 years ago, somewhere between the 6th and 4th century BCE (about 2,000 years before Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids). Why?
Although cromlechs are widely recognized as sacred and symbolic, no one really knows their function, beyond a gathering point for communities to celebrate the great cycles of nature. Were cromlechs giant celestial calendars? Was this a “thin place” where the lines between earth and the cosmos come closely together? No one knows.
Sadly and happily, the cromlech was fenced off. I was disappointed that we couldn’t wander amongst the massive stones, as previous visitors have done, to try to find the carvings of circles and shepherd’s staffs, like those on menhirs. However, the reason for the barricade was good. Too many feet had trampled upon and killed the vegetation, leading to soil erosion and wobbly stones. Conservation measures included fencing it off, adding more soil, and replanting vegetation.
“The Almendres Cromlech was originally built by the community and for the community,” said a sign posted on the fence, asking people to respect the boundary and not go beyond it. “It has survived for more than seven thousand years. It is up to all of us, today, as a community, to ensure its protection.”
People seem to heed the request. Lush green grass grew around the stones, and I realized that the photos I’d seen previously online showed mostly bare dirt.
As we gazed at the stone circle from afar, I tried to imagine standing in the middle, during the night, with the stars overhead, the Milky Way circling above, waiting for the dawn to spread its light from the east. The lyrics to “Champagne Supernova” kept repeating themselves in my head:
“But you and I, we live and die,
The world’s still spinning ’round
We don’t know why.
Why? Why? Why? Why?”
“Champagne Supernova” by Oasis
Did those Neolithic peoples know why they were put on Earth, only to die? Even with all our scientific knowledge today, we still can’t answer questions like that.
Dolmen of Zambujeiro (aka Anta Grande do Zambujeiro)
The Dolmen of Zambujeiro consists of a long corridor leading to a large burial chamber that used to have a large stone slab like a roof. Dolmens were covered with dirt and stones, which can still be seen as the hill at the back. Now, a modern roof protects the dolmen.
A friendly tabby cat patrolled the start of the dirt road that we walked for about a kilometre, past some curious calves and swathes of wildflowers, to the Dolmen of Zambujeiro. One of the largest dolmens in the world, this burial chamber was constructed at the end of the Neolithic period, about 3,200 BCE – slightly older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids.
The dolmen consists of a large round chamber and a long corridor. The low-ceilinged corridor faces east; at the spring equinox, the rising sun would illuminate the corridor and the chamber where the dead were interred. That doesn’t happen by accident. What did the equinox mean to them? Were they contemplating birth, life, death, the passage of time as the seasons changed, their finite time on earth?
Since the builders left no written records, archeologists can merely guess at their intent. However, they assume the people believed in an afterlife since the bodies were buried with ceramic vessels containing traces of food, flint instruments, polished stone axes, weapons, shale plaques and artistic adornments.
We circled the dolmen, climbing the short hill to the back to peer down into the now-empty burial chamber. A large stone slab behind the dolmen used to be the roof.
Walking along the sides gave us good views of the sheer enormity of the upright stones that form the chamber. Can you imagine trying to put them in place with just a few logs used as rollers and levers, an earthen ramp or two, and some rope? You must admire their engineering skills.
Evora Museum
The Evora museum displays shale plaques, a replica shepherd’s staff, and pottery discovered in the Dolmen of Zambujeiro.
Later, we visited the Évora Museum to see artifacts excavated from the Dolmen of Zambujeiro. We found only two small displays. Dozens of small pots presumably held the food that people had needed for their afterlife.
The intricately engraved shale plaques had often been placed on people’s chests. The small holes at the top of the plaques indicate they may have been pendants for necklaces. They sport geometric patterns of lines, triangles, and zigzags; some have eyes that make them look like owls. Scientists originally thought the engravings might represent a Neolithic deity, but later analysis led them to believe the patterns indicate family lineage.
The museum noted that when the dolmen was found, most of the earth that was piled up around it was still in place, protecting the “ritual artifacts that usually accompanied the funerary depositions in these monuments.” Other artifacts, including rare objects of gold and amber, were not on display.
It occurred to me that, even if we can’t take material goods with us to the afterlife, at least they become memory prompts for the generations that come after us.
Chapel of Bones
In the early 1600s, three monks used skulls, femurs, pelvises, spines and other human bones from the convent cemetery to decorate the Chapel of Bones.
“We, the bones that are here, for yours we are waiting,” reads the inscription over the entry to the Chapel of Bones – the highlight, for us, of Evora.
Are we morbid? I don’t believe so.
If you think more deeply than “Ewww, real bones as décor, that’s creepy” then the Chapel of Bones is a beautiful place to contemplate time and how you spend it, our tendency to accumulate too many material goods, and how we set our priorities in life.
The bones of about 5,000 people adorn the chapel, which is within the São Francisco [St. Francis] church. Skulls, femurs, pelvises, and vertebrae line the walls, columns and arches in decorative patterns.
In the early 1600s, the local cemeteries were getting full and the Franciscans were concerned about people’s values. So, three monks created the Chapel of Bones to remind people that our time on earth will come to an end, and material goods won’t mean anything then. In short – you can’t take it with you. An information panel described the chapel as “a space for prayer and meditation on the human condition…. Remember, O man, that you are dust, and to the dust you will return.”
Mummies hung on the chapel walls until the early 2000s; now two are enclosed in glass cases. They were long presumed to be a father and son, but scientific evaluations showed they are both female. At the front of the chapel, a white stone tomb, made in 1674, holds the bones of the São Francisco convent founders. A nearby memorial honours a bishop who was killed during the 1808 Napoleonic invasion.
This bone chapel is the largest of five in Portugal, but there are others scattered about Europe. We first encountered this type of devotional décor in Rome, in the Crypt of the Capuchin Friars, where bones even form chandeliers. While not strictly a chapel, the Paris Catacombs contain the bones of six million people, placed in a quarry-cum-ossuary in the 1700s. (We tried to visit in late November, thinking the shoulder season wouldn’t be busy, but we were wrong; heed the online advice to book tickets ahead.)
My favourite part of Evora’s Chapel of Bones is a sonnet written by Antonio Ascenção Teles, prior of the São Francisco church from 1845 to 1848. He urged travellers to stop and reflect on death and where they focus their attention. “For the sake of your journey, the more you pause, the more you will progress,” he wrote.
A fine advocacy for slow and thoughtful travel.
We visited Evora in April 2024 (and October 2019). Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.
I’ve always found contemplation of death more inspiring than depressing. Your post has inspired me to get out there and make the most of my day – and not to worry to much about the “things.”
I agree — it´s definitely more inspiring than depressing. I think my attitude about death changed after my father died, at home surrounded by loved ones. For some strange reason, it wasn´t as scary any more.
Chillingly interesting, Kathryn. Bones and stones, indeed. Thanks for another informative installment.
The plus is that all those old stones and bones make you feel young!!
We didn’t make it to the dolmen. The chapel of the bones was definitely ’interesting’ as the British would say. Over the last few years I read several very interesting books about prehistoric times and I was actually surprised how much more we know about it than I realised. DNA analysis opens new doors once again. Two books I enjoyed: ‘The Dawn of everything’ and ‘My European Family’.
Thanks for the recommendations. I´ll check out those books.