Medieval element
Pedra do Home
Place
Pedra do Home is located near the parish church of Portomouro, Val do Dubra. It is a historical site where there are tombs made of stone in which human shapes are carved. These tombs date back to the early Middle Ages, especially between the 8th and the 11th century, probably built by the Suevi. They are the remains of an old cemetery where corpses were buried in accordance with the Christian tradiction: with the heads of the deceased to the west and the feet to the east, exactly the same orientation that the churches maintained in old times. Currently there are three sarcophagi and they all have: a hole adapted for the head and a space for the rest of the body which is narrower at the feet. They were covered with a lid also made of stone. This immense cemetery was always associated with a church or a hermitage where a religious person lived alone. Probably for this reason, there are some remains of these constructions near the cemetery. Pedra do home was also called Pedra dos Mouros by the local people. The Mouros are the popular supernatural beings in Galician mythology. It is said, according to oral testimonies, that the stones were originally 5 meters high and in the cemetery there were more than a dozen sarcophagi, but now there are only three. In addition it had a staircase and a platform from which you could see the bridge and the river Tambre. In the 1950s, a treasure hunter from Santiago, called “Juan do Romaño”, asked for permission to find the treasure of the “Mouros” which he believed was hidden there and exploded the rock with dynamite, which caused irreparable damage to some parts of this whole historical place.
Information sources:
http://www.santiagoturismo.com/monumentos/monumento-megalitico-a-pedra-do-home
http://galiciapuebloapueblo.blogspot.com.es/2014/10/pedra-do-home.html