18 replies to this topic

[Diego]

Dear friends,
First of all we must apologise for our long absence from this forum. As many of you probably know, raising two small children and earn some € for a living is not an easy task... Anyway, our passion for the ancient stone monuments of Europe is still alive, so we are now (almost) ready to start a new project: a 2-month tour of Spain. We are going there with the kids (Alice is 6 year old now, while Daniele is 2 year old) and we shall explore the northern part of the country from May 20th to June 21st. We are looking forward to explore Southern Spain for another month in mid-september or so.

We have collected a huge database of megalithic sites (about 2500!) of Northern spain and the selection is really hard, considering that the best sites located on the mountainside require 4-5hrs walks and a 4-wheel car - and we don't own one. So, we will do what we can. But we are confident we will visit some breathtaking sites, and we will share everythng on this website. We are sure we won't have the energies to keep online diaries like the ones we wrote for our megalithic journeys in Scotland, Apulia, Corsica and Sardinia (back when blogs still didn't exist), but we will do our best to post some images and info on this forum.

We are also looking forward to meet some Spanish archaeologists and "megalithomaniacs". May of them are helping us with the selection and location of sites. And we will let you know their opinions and views about megalithic sites of Spain.

In the meantime, for the most curious among you, we post a series of links of very interesting websites devoted to Spanish megalithic sites: have a look at them and you'll be hooked, just like us...

• Megalitismo de la Península Ibérica
  
• Megalitos de España y su bibliografía
  
• Talayots.es (Baleares)
  
• Arqueobalear (Baleares)
  
• Arcis (Cataluña)
  
• Itinerari megalític a l'Albera (Cataluña)
  
• Monuments i llocs d'interes (Cataluña)
  
• El megalitismo en Galicia
  
• Megalitos de Guipúzcoa
  
• Historia de Guipúzcoa
  
• Menhires y otras piedras (Guipúzcoa - Navarra)
  
• Catálogo de Monumentos Megalíticos en Navarra
  
• Las rutas de los dólmenes de Navarra

All the best from Diego & Paola

[Pete G]

Enjoy your holiday Diego!
It's not easy with 2 small children but I'm sure you get to see some fabulous megaliths.

I look forward to seeing your photo posts as you make them,
Happy holidays...
PeteG

[Maju]

Great stuff you have found.

Hope you enjoy your trip. If you need something when you are near Bilbao, send me a PM.

[Diego]

Thank you dear friends for your kind words... We will do our best to keep you posted about the best bits of our journey. BTW, if anyone has some Spanish megalithic site to suggest, please let us know!

[Pete G]

"(back when blogs still didn't exist)"

I remember those tours so well.
It was very exciting waiting to see where you had been in the last week and looking at the lovely photos you both posted.
As I said at the time it was like riding along in your rucksack!
PeteG

[Maju]

Diego, on 15 May 2008, 18:11, said:

BTW, if anyone has some Spanish megalithic site to suggest, please let us know!

Not really. Sadly there seems not to be such a wide interest here on Megalithism as in Britain. True that we don't have anything of the dimensions of Stonehenge or Carnac but overall the period between the Paleolithic and written history is somewhat less studied and, specially, divugalted. Your list of sites is better than anything I had.

Still, you may find these interesting:

- Megalithism in Biscay (official provincial site)
- Conjunto Megalítico de Los Lagos (Cantabria) (in Spanish)
- An article on Celtiberia.net on Basque cromlechs (stone circles) (in Spanish but with many nice pics)
- 'El Megalitismo' at Dearqueologia.com. Interesting general site with some internal links to more specific pages. (in Spanish). See also Cuadro de arquaologia: Megalitismo, same site.
- Megalitismo.org. Nice but small site (mostly in Spanish only).

Also the whole Celtiberia.net site may be interesting: here an internal search for dolmens (hope it works).

[Diego]

Maju, on 16 May 2008, 10:34, said:

Sadly there seems not to be such a wide interest here on Megalithism as in Britain.

That's just what we noticed visiting all the major bookstores in Madrid, when we went there last March. There are NO books or guidebooks about Spanish megalithic sites. And that's quite startling, considering we have collected a database of about 2500 sites just for the Northern part of that country...

Do you have any idea of the reasons behind this apparent lack of interest by Spanish people? And how do you think we could change it?

We are frantically packing everything right now - and we are behind schedule with the selection of sites and the printing of maps. We've got only about 48 hours before our ship will leave towards Barcelona!

[Maju]

Diego, on 17 May 2008, 14:21, said:

Maju, on 16 May 2008, 10:34, said:

Sadly there seems not to be such a wide interest here on Megalithism as in Britain.

That's just what we noticed visiting all the major bookstores in Madrid, when we went there last March. There are NO books or guidebooks about Spanish megalithic sites. And that's quite startling, considering we have collected a database of about 2500 sites just for the Northern part of that country...

Do you have any idea of the reasons behind this apparent lack of interest by Spanish people? And how do you think we could change it?

I wish I knew. I think the general approach is that it's something erudite, so common people is not normally interested. My own knowledge is largely from university manuals on prehistory (borrowed from my sister, who doesn't have real interest either).

You may be luckier looking in good public libraries than in bookstores. I have found some decent material there too - but you have to return it.

Other factors may be the perception of history beginning with the Romans, and lack of romantic interest in pre-Roman history. When it exists it's more commonly focused in Celts and Iberians and neither of these peoples were megalith builders (Celts arrived late, Iberians were mostly in the non-megalithic area of the peninsula). There is no magnificient Stonehenge or Carnac to serve as reference anyhow or to feed a turistic industry that could be interested in getting those books out. There are a couple of peninsular civilizations related with Megalithism but even these are poorly known by the public and the one more strongly connected (Zambujal) is in Portugal. Still Portuguese seem not more interested in megalithism or Chalcolithic than Spaniards.

In the Basque Country the situation may (or at least should) be slightly different. But there is a lot of work to do anyhow. One problem is that 40 years of fascism have left two generations basically ignorant of our own history. In all that time there was just one version of history and it was a Castilian Catholic Imperial one. The rest didn't really matter or was even supressed. Prehistory is almost not studied in schools, at most children get out with the pictures of Altamira in mind and that's about all. In comparison Antiquity and Modern Age are studied in great depth. So the idea people has of monuments are Roman theatres and Gothic cathedrals, not rustic menhirs or trilithes.

I am totally self-educated on Prehistory and, obviously I am an exception, not the rule.

I guess, in comparison, in Britain you have two centuries of romantic Celticism. Sure that megaliths were not the work of Celts but their predecessors but for long were associated with them and the glamour got mixed.

Maybe the situation in Spain is not that bad in comparison with mainland Europe. I think that (with few exceptions, as Carnac, the Nuraghi, Malta) the interest in megalithism (and prehistory in general) is quite limited. The situation in Britain may be somewhat exceptional (for good).

What can we do? Guess that work for better and more accesible knowledge. Some of the sites you posted are quite promising in fact and the Internet is a good divulgative tool. Obviously to have one or more good books in the market could help too. Not sure - would I be younger, I might get enthusiastic about doing something myself. Right now I tend to passivity though.

Quote

We are frantically packing everything right now - and we are behind schedule with the selection of sites and the printing of maps. We've got only about 48 hours before our ship will leave towards Barcelona!

Are you in Baleares? Anyhow, have fun.

[Diego]

Dear friends,
We are back from Spain! The journey was really great, even if we had lots and lots of rain: 18 days of rain during the first 3 weeks, a record that couldn't be beaten by other notoriously rainy countries we visited in the past like Scotland, Ireland or Wales. We managed to visit 131 ancient Spanish sites in 32 days, we drove for more than 6100 km and our two kids (Alice & Daniele) enjoyed the journey too. Of course we made also lots of photos - about 3200 - including spherical panoramic movies, special High Dynamic Range images and elevated shots.

We are planning to put on this website all the stuff we collected, but you must be patient... During our journey we found quite difficult to find good connections to the net, so we've had to put aside our plan to keep you regularly updated while on tour. In any case, we'd like to give you a short resume of what we found along our way. So, we will start new topics with the highlights of Northern Spain megalithic sites, one per week. In the meantime, we are making some tests with hi-res full screen panoramic movies. They require javascript activated and Flash 9 installed in your computer. If you'd like to have a look at one of the first tests and let us know your opinion, just click here.

It's a full spherical panorama of one of the dolmens we visited, called the "Portillo de Eneriz". To enjoy it full screen, just make its window as large as possible, or click the first icon on the right side of the bottom row. You can change your point of view using either your mouse or the onscreen arrows. Please note the file is about 2MB, so it takes a little to download. And the panoramic movie needs a powerful graphic card to scroll smoothly on a large (>19") screen.

All the best from sunny Italy

Diego

[Maju]

Wow! Very impressive panoramic! It's almost like being there.

How do you do that? Guess you must follow a very strict routine of sequential images, right?

Enjoy your travels.

[kevin.b]

Maju, on 2 July 2008, 21:23, said:

Wow! Very impressive panoramic! It's almost like being there.

How do you do that? Guess you must follow a very strict routine of sequential images, right?

Enjoy your travels.

Must agree , very very impressive, and much appreciated.
The opening appears to have a very purposely made shape and arrangement?
Any number of temporary materials could have been employed as a sort of doorway, wood would seem the obvious, but I suspect quartz.
Kevin

[Pete G]

Good to have you back.
You seem to have had an eventful time.

Are you using PTGui to stitch the sphericals?

Looking forward to more....
PeteG

[Diego]

Pete G, on 2 July 2008, 22:21, said:

Are you using PTGui to stitch the sphericals?

To stitch the panoramas we are using Autodesk Stitcher Unlimited 5.6.2. But we are also using the following software (listed in alphabetical order) to correct/enhance/manage the images before and after stitching:

• Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended
  
• Apple Aperture 2.1
  
• Click Here Design CubicConverter 2.2.1
  
• Nikon Capture NX2

Diego

[Pete G]

I have been experimenting with Sticher, it can handle HDR's.
One day all these utilities will be included in one package (I hope)

Did you take any HDR's?
Pete

[Diego]

Pete G, on 2 July 2008, 23:43, said:

Did you take any HDR's?

Plenty of them, but not for the panoramic shots. I think that for outdoor/landscape panoramas aren't truly necessary. About 25-30% of the time I had to wait for some short moments to catch the available sunlight, or for the light to stabilize. And with HDR the time needed to complete a full spherical panorama would be too long for my taste, even if I'm using a full frame fisheye lens.

BTW, my favourite HDR software is Photomatix Pro 3.0.3.

Diego