Also known as: Monumento funerário eneolítico do Barro
Stand beside the shrine of Our Lady of Pity (Nossa Senhora da Pena) and admire the view all around the hill: the town of Torres Vedras, farmland and smaller villages, the valleys on either side and the hillsides sporting tall wind turbines. The wind blows strongly although the trees along the access road provide a windbreak. At your feet, large stones poke their way out of the soil. Just beyond, the massive circular structure shows that people used this hillside over four thousand years ago as a final resting place for their loved ones, and maybe other purposes as well.
The Tholos do Barro was discovered in 1909 by a French priest who was teaching at the convent below the hill. It was later excavated and many artefacts were obtained, including bones and decorative and votive items. In particular, a cylindrical idol was found which enabled the tholos to be dated as concurrent with the nearby Castro do Zambujal, in the 3rd millennium BC. Artefacts from later eras were also found, indicating its use or reuse during as late as the Bronze Age. Further excavations were conducted in 2021 and 2022. There is not much published about the specific findings. The artefacts found are located in the Municipal Museum Leonel Trindade in nearby Torres Vedras. It was declared a National Monument in 1943.
This tholos is one of the few in Portugal that has indications of a stone cúpula or dome1. There’s not a lot of formal research that has been done on the architecture of these tholoi, but some indication is that the height of the dome should have been approximately equal to its width. As the Tholos do Barro is approximately 6m in diameter, it is likely that the dome would have been equally high. (The remaining walls are about 1m tall.)
This is the largest and best preserved tholos in Portugal. The chamber has a diameter of 6m and an access corridor of 4m. The access corridor faces south. There is a large cliff face just beyond the antechamber, although there is evidence of quarrying on the side of the mountain2, so it is likely that when the tholos was built there was more space beyond the antechamber. The mound or mamoa is 13m in diameter.
Location
The tholos is in the district of Lisbon, in the municipality of Torres Vedres. It’s just outside of the town of Torres Vedras, next to the village of Barro (from which it gets its name). The tholos is very close to the shrine of Our Lady of Pity (“Ermida de Nossa Senhora da Pena”).
Access
There is a fairly easy to drive dirt road that heads strait up to the shrine and tholos. The road is reasonably easy to get up, although after heavy rains large stones stick out. You might have to stop before reaching the top – I did. It’s then an easy walk up.
Signage
There are no signs indicating the way to the tholos, and there are no information signs near it. You can follow signs to the church (“igreja”) from the village of Barro just outside of Torres Vedras. That will get you close. You can head to the Shrine of Nossa Senhora da Pena (or “Ermida de Nossa Senhora da Pena”), which is just beyond the old convent of Nossa Senhora dos Anjos (which is now a hospital). The easiest is to look for the site on Google Maps or plug in the GPS coordinates: 39.067429, -9.262650
Links
- Article (in English) from Wikipedia
- Entry (in English) in the Megalithic Portal
- Description (in Portuguese, with English translation) from the tourism website of Torres Vedras
- News article (in Portuguese) -with some good photographs- about the excavations in 2021 from RTP
- Description (in Portuguese) from Archaeologist’s Portal of Directorate-General of Cultural Heritage
- Designation (in Portuguese) as a National Monument by the Directorate-General of Cultural Heritage
- Detailed information (in Portuguese) in the database of the Directorate-General of Cultural Heritage
Nearby
In the centre of Torres Vedres, about 4km away, the Municipal Museum of Leonel Trindade has many artefacts from this tholos on display, as well as a model of the tholos as it would (likely) have been built. The Castro de Zambujal is only about 6km away.
Sources
- Sousa, Ana Catarina. “Megalitísmo E Metalurgia: Os Tholoi Do Centro E Sul de Portugal.” Terra E Água: Escholher Sementes, Invocar a Deusa (Estudos Em Homenagem a Victor S. Gonçalves), Lisboa, Centro de Arqueologia da Universidade de Lisboa, 2016, pp. 209–241, www.researchgate.net/publication/303767852_Megalitismo_e_Metalurgia_Os_Tholoi_do_Centro_e_Sul_de_Portugal. Accessed 14 Mar. 2025. ↩︎
- Sousa, Ana Catarina, et al. “A (Re)Descoberta Da Necrópole Do Pai Mogo (Lourinhã, Portugal) E O Fenómeno Dos Sepulcros Tipo Tholoi Na Península de Lisboa.” Cuadernos de Prehistoria Y Arqueología de La Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, vol. 50, no. 2, 20 Dec. 2024, pp. 87–117, https://doi.org/10.15366/cupauam2024.50.2.003. Accessed 18 Mar. 2025. ↩︎
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