Arcis

The riddle of the Serrat de l'Ase dolmen

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Drawing by Josep Colominas



december 30, 2000
 This dolmen was first published by Josep Colominas Roca, in the Anuari de l'Institut d'Estudis Catalans in the years 1915-1920. With the plan and section drawings (upper left), Colominas gives the measures of the monument and says: It is made of four slabs of limestone and it's surrounded by a cairn of 8 meters of diameter. Somebody dug it, and today shepherds have filled it with stones in order to avoid cattle falling into it.

There was a lot of confussion with this dolmen. The fact is that about the same epoch (years 1916 and 1920) Serra Vilaró visited the megaliths on the Ares mountain separately from Colominas. Serra Vilaró describes a dolmen named Moor's Cave in the Head of the Solana dels Gitanos, which, by its situation, corresponds with that of the Serrat de l'Ase and says: There is not capstone. All the slabs have an height of one meter. In its base, where the plant is measured, (fig. 408), the slabs don't touch; but, as the heading slabs raise they became wider; at the same time side slabs close to the interior as they raise, so when the upper border is reached the chamber makes a well closed rectangle. (Civilització Megalítica a Catalunya, pp. 298 and 299)

All this relates well to the actual look of Serrat de l'Ase dolmen with the exception that the drawing in figure num. 408 contradicts the text and the actual plant of the dolmen. On the other hand, figure num. 413 (the author says it's the plant of the Saracen's Hut in Cercedol) matches well our dolmen -if, as the author says, the plant is taken in the base- and figure num. 408 matches the description of the Saracen's Hut. Summing it up, it's very likely that figues 408 and 413 are missplaced. Moreover, if we add the fact that Colominas and Serra Vilaró gave different names to the same monument we have got a good mess. Finally, things became even worse considering the fact that the Ares mountain is very lonely and difficult to access.

All this has been the cause that until very recently the Serrat de l'Ase dolmen -sure, it's the same as that of the Head de la Solana del Gitanos- was lost, until Jordi Pasques has brought it to light again.