These stone bowers of the dead, the final resting place of the ancestors are found throughout the mountain.
Carved in the living rock by cunning and ancient people, they provide a bridge to the past and a direct link to my forebears.
Approaching via the merest suggestion of a track, a faint line of ancient intention in the forest, one stumbles into this hallowed space of yore.
One cannot help but whisper here and even the wind seems reverential in its soft touch over rock and bush.
Now covered with lichens, many no doubt contemporary with the immemorial burial, bring life to this glade of death.
It is possible that the remains of the people interred here live on within the cells of these symbiotic communities.
The life of the ancients thus still dances within this ecology and is it fancy that distant voices susurrate on the edge of the wild wind.
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Photo: Anthropogenic rock grave at Saladaviciosa. Courtesy of the author.
