Heritage

A Pedra Alta or Pedra Grande de Antela: the menhir of the Lagoa

The Pedra Alta is a 3.47 m granite menhir in the heart of the former Antela lagoon, a boundary marker between Xunqueira de Ambía, Sarreaus and Vilar de Barrio; it has Christian inscriptions and was re-erected in 1986.

The Pedra Alta, also called Pedra Grande de Antela or Pedra Alta de Cortegada, is a menhir standing in what was once the heart of the Antela lagoon. It nominally belongs to the parish of Cortegada (Sarreaus) and marks the boundary between the municipalities of Xunqueira de Ambía, Sarreaus and Vilar de Barrio ^[1].

The monument

According to the description by the Altalimia project, it is an «oblong menhir of very thick granite, irregular in section and longer in its upper third», with several inscriptions, some of them superimposed, which shows that it was reused. The inscriptions were studied by the researcher Tomás Vega and point to a Christian reuse; dating them, as with other «pedrafitas» in the area, is very difficult ^[1]. Turismo de Galicia says it may have been raised between the third and fourth millennia BC and that Tomás Vega Pato identified several crosses and a Christian inscription probably made between the 9th and 12th centuries; it also mentions the hypothesis that the lagoon itself owed its name to the menhir, since «antela» would be a diminutive of «anta», a Galician word applied to stones from megalithic monuments and field enclosures ^[4]. It is 3.47 metres high and between 73 and 42 cm wide, and is one of the few menhirs in Galicia ^[1].

It was damaged by a tractor in 1975, and it was not until 1986 that the Deputación took charge of it and set it upright at its present site, only 70 metres from where it had been found ^[1]. The region has a magnificent megalithic repertoire; the most outstanding example is the concentration in the Salas valley between Calvos de Randín and Muíños ^[1].

The legend

The legend collected in Galicia Encantada says that the Virgin was flying towards Cortegada from Mount Poedo with the Pedra on her head and that it finally fell from her; it is also linked to a Moorish woman who spun while holding the great stone on her head ^[1]^[2].

The prize that bears its name

Since 2017 the Pedra Alta has given its name to the Museo da Limia prize, whose figure is a replica of the menhir made by the sculptor Xosé Lois Carreira. See Premio Pedra Alta ^[1].