Insculptured granite block in the Capela Estate

Category: Archaeology > Engraving

District: Évora > Reguengos de Monsaraz > Caridade > Bairro dos 14 Fogos

Location

The sculpted granite block is located within the vast and serene Alentejo landscape, specifically in the locality of Caridade, in the municipality of Reguengos de Monsaraz, which is part of the district of Évora. More precisely, this site of historical interest is situated on the Herdade da Capela (Chapel Estate), near the Bairro dos 14 Fogos (Neighborhood of the 14 Houses).

The geographical surroundings are marked by rural tranquility, typical of the Alentejo. The area is characterized by open fields and vegetation that reflects the Mediterranean climate, providing an environment of profound quietude and connection with nature. Observing this block allows for direct contact with the deep past of the territory, framed by a landscape that, in many aspects, maintains timeless characteristics.

Ancestral Testimony in Stone

This granite block is a remarkable testimony to human presence and its cultural manifestations in remote times. Its surfaces bear engravings, or sculptured marks, that reveal patterns and figures resulting from the intervention of ancestral communities. The choice of granite, a rock of great hardness and durability, ensured the preservation of these marks over millennia, allowing them to reach our days as a valuable legacy.

Every stroke and every shape sculpted into this block reflects a set of knowledge, beliefs, and practices of the peoples who inhabited this region in other eras. The nature of the engravings can vary, ranging from abstract geometric motifs to more figurative representations, though often stylized. Their existence highlights the human capacity to leave a record and to communicate through art and symbol, using the available natural elements as a medium.

Interpretation and Symbolism

Although the exact interpretation of each engraving can be challenging, due to the temporal distance and the loss of original cultural contexts, the presence of these sculptured marks on the granite block at Herdade da Capela suggests multiple purposes. They could have served as territorial markers, indicators of rituals, representations of deities or cosmic elements, or even as primitive forms of narrative or counting.

The mere existence of these marks on the stone, in a location that today appears serene and isolated, evokes the complexity of the symbolic thought of prehistoric communities. Visiting the block is an opportunity to reflect on the persistence of human culture and how it imprints itself on the natural landscape, transforming a geological element into an object of profound cultural and historical significance.

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.pt