Burial chamber ‘coma de felis’

When you go in search of dolmens, or megalithic tombs, they are not necessarily where you last remember seeing them. If you remember them at all. This one never was so far, nor the path so steep, nor was that dead snake lying across the path with ominous intent: nor is it now. The spores and stones and wild boar droppings dotted with grape seed, yes: the senglars still eat grapes. That’s why gunshots ring out across the valley of the Orlina, though no one gets hurt. It was years ago you last climbed this hill, and besides, you begin to wonder, were you ever truly here, or did you start the climb to the dolmen, but never reach it, became diverted by another path, slipped away down the valley to the east?

                                              Burial chamber with (living) occupant

As with all dolmens – burial chambers are called dolmens hereabouts – only when you find it do you realise it could only ever have been built here, in this spot, that it occupies its space so perfectly not only because it has been here for so long, around five thousand years – but that it was created here because of the space it occupies. Habitus of the dead: perfect symbiosis with landscape. In a dig here in in 1979 they found a knife of brown silex, beads of sandstone, a turquoise pendant and several ceramic fragments.

                                                      Burial chamber with view towards Cap de Creus and the sea