Anta da Cerqueira, Neolithic dolmen in Couto de Esteves, Portugal

Anta da Cerqueira is a Neolithic burial structure with a multi-sided central chamber and a passageway leading to it. Nine large stones support the chamber while a heavy stone slab covers the top, and the passage extends outward with eleven additional stone supports lining its sides.

This burial structure was built between the fourth and third millennium before the common era and belongs to a group of eight similar monuments in the same area. It comes from a time when communities started marking their dead with permanent stone structures.

Locally the monument is called Casa Moura, "the Moor's house", a name that folk tradition attached to many megalithic tombs in Portugal. The site lies within a necropolis of eight monuments, and a panel at the tomb explains its structure and excavation. The passage now opens directly onto the road to Cerqueira, which cut into the mound.

The access path to Cerqueira cuts through the mound, so the 4.4 m passage opens directly onto the road. The site lies 1.6 km south of Campo de Arca in Couto de Esteves, on the eastern slope of the Serra do Arestal, with no public transport nearby. An information panel explains the monument on site.

The capstone sealing the chamber is unusually heavy and large in scale. Its sheer size demonstrates the effort and skill required by the people who built this structure to position such massive stones.