The dolmen Frisari is a prehistoric megalithic monument of the Bronze Age, in the territory of Bisceglie, a hundred metres above sea level. The name comes from the owner of the plot where it was found: until the early twentieth century the land belonged to Senator Giulio Frisari.
What to see
The megalith was discovered in 1909 by the archaeologist Michele Gervasio, at the same time as the investigations of the other two nearby dolmens, that of the Chianca and that of Albarosa. At the time of its discovery it was half-destroyed by human intervention and by time: it had no capstone and was bounded by three slabs barely emerging from the ground, with the opening facing east. In the chamber were found fragments of a human femur and a molar tooth, and from the size of the slabs Gervasio was able to state that it was the most imposing of all the Apulian dolmens. In 1990 the Archaeological Superintendency of Apulia began a new excavation campaign and a project to recover the area: there came to light a structure of loose stones, intentionally set into a paving of roughly dressed slabs resting on the limestone base platform, the reddish-brown clay floor of the corridor, on which the human burials and grave goods must have rested, and bone remains and objects, among them the back part of an adult skull, a small cup and a carinated bowl, datable between the sixteenth and fifteenth century BC.
The dolmen, of the gallery type oriented east-west, consisted of a chamber about two metres wide and about three and a half metres long; the tumulus had an elliptical plan, with a maximum extent of about eight metres on the north-south axis. From comparison with other megaliths of the northern Bari area, the Frisari dolmen is considered analogous to the Chianca dolmen, although the chamber is slightly narrower.
Visiting
The dolmen stands in the countryside, in the territory of Bisceglie. The sources consulted give no opening hours and do not say whether it can be visited: check them.
Our editors' tip
It is reached by driving about four and a half kilometres along the SP 86 Bisceglie-Ruvo di Puglia and taking on the left a country road that leads, towards Lama d'Aglio, to the megalith; it stands a little over three kilometres from the Chianca dolmen and about two and a half from the Albarosa one.
