The Spanish Peninsula abounds in megalithic monuments.  With the exception of a few menhirs, whose purpose is uncertain, all are sepulchral.  Dolmens and corridor-tombs are numerous in many parts, especially in the north-east provinces, in Galicia, in Andalusia, and, above all, in Portugal.  There is a fine dolmen in the Vall Gorguina in North-East Spain.  The cover-slab, measuring 10 feet by 8, is supported by seven rough uprights with considerable spaces between them.  In the same region is a ruined dolmen surrounded by a circle nearly 90 feet in circumference, consisting of seven large stones, some of which appear to be partly worked.  Circles are also found round dolmens in Andalusia.  Portugal abounds in fine dolmens both of the round and rectangular types.  At Fonte Coberta on the Douro stands a magnificent dolmen known locally as the Moors’ House.  In the name of the field, Fonte Coberta, there is doubtless an allusion to the belief that the dolmens conceal springs of water, a belief also held in parts of Ireland.

At Eguilaz in the Basque provinces is a fine corridor-tomb, in which a passage 20 feet long, roofed with flat slabs, leads to a rectangular chamber 13 feet by 15 with an immense cover-slab nearly 20 feet in length:  the whole was covered with a mound of earth.  The chamber contained human bones and “lanceheads of stone and bronze.”  A famous tomb of a similar type exists at Marcella in Algarve.  The chamber is a fine circle of upright slabs.  It is paved with stones, and part of its area is divided into two or perhaps three rectangular compartments.  A couple of orthostatic slabs form a sort of neck joining the circle to the passage, which narrows as it leads away from the circle, and was probably divided into two sections by a doorway whose side-posts still remain.

In South-East Spain the brothers Siret have found corridor-tombs in which the chamber is cut in the rock surface and roofed with slabs; the entrance passage becomes a slope or a staircase.  Here we have a parallel to the Giants’ Graves of Sardinia, which are built usually of stone blocks on the surface, but occasionally are cut in the solid rock.  Other tombs in the same district show the common megalithic construction consisting of a base course of upright slabs surmounted by several courses of horizontal masonry (Fig. 14).  The chamber is usually round, and may have two or more niches in its circumference.  It is roofed by the successive overlapping or corbelling of the upper courses.  The vault thus formed is further supported by a pillar of wood or stone set in the centre of the chamber.  On the walls of some of the chambers there are traces of rough painting in red.  The whole tomb is covered with a circular mound.  In the best known example at Los Millares there are remains of a semicircular facade in front of the entrance, as in many other megalithic monuments.

[Illustration:  FIG. 14.  Corridor-tomb at Los Millares, Spain. 
               (After Siret.)]