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Title: Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders
Author: Peet, T. Eric (Thomas Eric), 1882-1934
Language: English
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[Illustration: STONEHENGE FROM THE SOUTH-EAST]
ROUGH STONE
MONUMENTS
AND THEIR
BUILDERS
BY
T. ERIC PEET
FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF QUEEN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD;
LATELY CRAVEN FELLOW IN THE UNIVERSITY
OF OXFORD AND PELHAM STUDENT AT
THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF ROME
HARPER & BROTHERS
LONDON AND NEW YORK
45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1912
_Published October, 1912_.
PREFACE
The aim of this volume is to enable those who are interested in
Stonehenge and other great stone monuments of England to learn something
of the similar buildings which exist in different parts of the world, of
the men who constructed them, and of the great archæological system of
which they form a part. It is hoped that to the archæologist it may be
useful as a complete though brief sketch of our present knowledge of the
megalithic monuments, and as a short treatment of the problems which
arise in connection with them.
To British readers it is unnecessary to give any justification for the
comparatively full treatment accorded to the monuments of Great Britain
and Ireland. Malta and Sardinia may perhaps seem to occupy more than
their due share of space, but the usurpation is justified by the
magnificence and the intrinsic interest of their megalithic buildings.
Being of singularly complicated types and remarkably well preserved they
naturally tell us much more of their builders than do the simpler
monuments of other larger and now more important countries. In these two
islands, moreover, research has in the last few years been extremely
active, and it is felt that the accounts here given of them will contain
some material new even to the archæologist.
In order to assist those readers who may wish to follow out the subject
in greater detail a short bibliography has been added to the book.
For the figures and photographs with which this volume is illustrated I
have to thank many archæological societies and individual scholars.
Plate III and part of Plate II I owe to the kindness of Dr. Zammit,
Director of the Museum of Valletta, while the other part of Plate II is
from a photograph kindly lent to me by Dr. Ashby. I have to thank the
Society of Antiquaries for Figures 1 and 3, the Reale Accademia dei
Lincei for Figures 17 and 20, and the Société préhistorique de France,
through Dr. Marcel Baudouin, for Figure 10. I am indebted to the Royal
Irish Academy for Figure 8, to the Committee of the British School of
Rome for Figure 18, and to Dr. Albert Mayr and the Akademie der
Wissenschaften in Munich for the plan of Mnaidra. Professors Montelius,
Siret and Cartailhac I have to thank not only for permission to
reproduce illustrations from their works, but also for their kind
interest in my volume. Figure 19 I owe to my friend Dr. Randall MacIver.
The frontispiece and Plate I are fine photographs by Messrs. The
Graphotone Co., Ltd.
In conclusion, I must not forget to thank Canon F.F. Grensted for much
help with regard to the astronomical problems connected with Stonehenge.
T. ERIC PEET.
LIVERPOOL,
_August 10th,_ 1912.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. STONEHENGE AND OTHER GREAT STONE
MONUMENTS IN ENGLAND AND WALES 15
III. MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS IN SCOTLAND
AND IRELAND 34
IV. THE SCANDINAVIAN MEGALITHIC AREA 52
V. FRANCE, SPAIN AND PORTUGAL 59
VI. ITALY AND ITS ISLANDS 76
VII. AFRICA, MALTA, AND THE SMALLER.
MEDITERRANEAN ISLANDS 90
VIII. THE DOLMENS OF ASIA 114
IX. THE BUILDERS OF THE MEGALITHIC
MONUMENTS, THEIR HABITS, CUSTOMS,
RELIGION, ETC 123
X. WHO WERE THE BUILDERS, AND WHENCE
DID THEY COME? 143
BIBLIOGRAPHY 159
INDEX 167
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATES
Stonehenge from the south-east _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
I. Stonehenge from the south-west 17
II. Mnaidra, doorway of Room H. The _Nuraghe_ of
Madrone in Sardinia 82
III. Temple of Mnaidra, Malta. Apse of chief room 100
FIGURE PAGE
1. Plan of Stonehenge 16
2. Avebury and Kennet Avenue 23
3. Plans of English Long Barrows 31
4. Horned tumulus, Caithness 39
5. Plans of three dolmen-types 40
6. Type-plan of simple corridor-tomb 42
7. Type-plan of wedge-shaped tomb 44
8. Corridor-tomb at New Grange, Ireland 47
9. Corridor-tomb at Ottagården, Sweden 53
10. Plan of La Pierre aux Fées, Oise, France 61
11. Chambered mound at Fontenay-le-Marmion, Normandy 63
12. Plan of La Grotte des Fées, Arles, France 65
13. The so-called dolmen-deity, Petit Morin, France 66
14. Plan of corridor-tomb at Los Millares, Spain 69
15. Section and plan of a _talayot_, Majorca 72
16. Section and plan of the _nau_ d'Es Tudons 73
17. Elevation, section and plan of a Sardinian _nuraghe_ 83
18. Plan of Giant's Tomb at Muraguada, Sardinia 87
19. Plan of stone circle at the Senâm, Algeria 94
20. Plan of the Sese Grande, Pantelleria 97
21. Plan of the Sanctuary of Mnaidra, Malta 99
22. Dolmen with holed stone at Ala Safat 115
ROUGH STONE MONUMENTS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
To the south of Salisbury Plain, about two miles west of the small
country town of Amesbury, lies the great stone circle of Stonehenge. For
centuries it has been an object of wonder and admiration, and even
to-day it is one of the sights of our country. Perhaps, however, few of
those who have heard of Stonehenge or even of those who have visited it
are aware that it is but a unit in a vast crowd of megalithic monuments
which, in space, extends from the west of Europe to India, and, in time,
covers possibly more than a thousand years.
What exactly is a megalithic monument? Strictly speaking, it is a
building made of very large stones. This definition would, of course,
include numbers of buildings of the present day and of the medieval and
classical periods, while many of the Egyptian pyramids and temples would
at once suggest themselves as excellent examples of this type of
building. The archæologist, however, uses the term in a much more
limited sense. He confines it to a series of tombs and buildings
constructed in Western Asia, in North Africa, and in certain parts of
Europe, towards the end of the neolithic period and during part of the
copper and bronze ages which followed it. The structures are usually,
though not quite invariably, made of large blocks of unworked or
slightly worked stone, and they conform to certain definite types. The
best known of these types are as follows: Firstly, the menhir, which is
a tall, rough pillar of stone with its base fixed into the earth.
Secondly, the trilithon, which consists of a pair of tall stones set at
a short distance apart supporting a third stone laid across the top.
Thirdly, the dolmen, which is a single slab of stone supported by
several others arranged in such a way as to enclose a space or chamber
beneath it. Some English writers apply the term cromlech to such a
structure, quite incorrectly. Both menhir and dolmen are Breton words,
these two types of megalithic monument being particularly frequent in
Brittany. Menhir is derived from the Breton _men_, a stone, and _hir_,
long; similarly dolmen is from _dol_, a table, and _men_, a stone. Some
archæologists also apply the word dolmen to rectangular chambers roofed
with more than one slab. We have carefully avoided this practice, always
classing such chambers as corridor-tombs of an elementary type.
Fourthly, we have the corridor-tomb (_Ganggrab_), which usually consists
of a chamber entered by a gallery or corridor. In cases where the
chamber is no wider than, and hence indistinguishable from the corridor,
the tomb becomes a long rectangular gallery, and answers to the French
_allée couverte_ in the strict sense. Fifthly, we come to the
_alignement_, in which a series of menhirs is arranged in open lines on
some definite system. We shall find a famous example of this at Morbihan
in Brittany. Sixthly, there is the cromlech (from _crom_, curve, and
_lec'h_, a stone), which consists of a number of menhirs arranged to
enclose a space, circular, elliptical or, in rare cases, rectangular.
These are the chief types of megalithic monument, but there are others
which, though clearly belonging to the same class of structure, show
special forms and are more complicated. They are in many cases
developments of one or more of the simple types, and will be treated
specially in their proper places. Such monuments are the _nuraghi_ of
Sardinia and the 'temples' of Malta and Gozo.
Finally, the rock-hewn sepulchre is often classed with the megalithic
monuments, and it is therefore frequently mentioned in the following
pages. This is justified by the fact that it generally occurs in
connection with megalithic structures. The exact relation in which it
stands to them will be fully discussed in the last chapter.
We have now to consider what may be called the architectural methods of
the megalithic builders, for although in dealing with such primitive
monuments it would perhaps be exaggeration to speak of a style, yet
there were certain principles which were as carefully and as invariably
observed as were in later days those of the Doric or the Gothic styles
in the countries where they took root.
The first and most important principle, that on which the whole of the
megalithic construction may be said to be based, is the use of the
orthostatic block, i.e. the block set up on its edge. It is clear that
in this way each block or slab is made to provide the maximum of wall
area at the expense of the thickness of the wall. Naturally, in
districts where the rock is of a slabby nature blocks of a more or less
uniform thickness lay ready to the builders' hand, and the appearance of
the structure was much more finished than it would be in places where
the rock had a less regular fracture or where shapeless boulders had to
be relied on. The orthostatic slabs were often deeply sunk into the
ground where this consisted of earth or soft rock; of the latter case
there are good examples at Stonehenge, where the rock is a soft chalk.
When the ground had an uneven surface of hard rock, the slabs were set
upright on it and small stones wedged in beneath them to make them stand
firm. Occasionally, as at Mnaidra and Hagiar Kim, a course of horizontal
blocks set at the foot of the uprights served to keep them more securely
in position. With the upright block technique went hand in hand the
roofing of narrow spaces by means of horizontal slabs laid across the
top of the uprights.
The second principle of megalithic architecture was the use of more or
less coursed masonry set without mortar, each block lying on its side
and not on its edge. It is quite possible that this principle is less
ancient in origin than that of the orthostatic slab, for it usually
occurs in structures of a more advanced type. Thus in simple and
primitive types of building such as the dolmen it is most rare to find
dry masonry, but in the advanced corridor-tombs of Ireland, the Giants'
Graves and _nuraghi_ of Sardinia, and in the 'temples' of Malta this
technique is largely used, often in combination with the upright slab
system. Indeed, this combination is quite typical of the best megalithic
work: a series of uprights is first set in position, and over this are
laid several horizontal courses of rather smaller stones. We must note
that the dry masonry which we are describing is still strictly
megalithic, as the blocks used are never small and often of enormous
size.
Buildings in which this system is used are occasionally roofed with
slabs, but more often corbelling is employed. At a certain height each
succeeding course in the wall begins to project inwards over the last,
so that the walls, as it were, lean together and finally meet to form a
false barrel-vault or a false dome, according as the structure is
rectangular or round. Occasionally, when the building was wide, it was
impossible to corbel the walls sufficiently to make them meet. In this
case they were corbelled as far as possible and the open space still
left was covered with long flat slabs.
It has often been commented on as a matter of wonder that a people
living in the stone age, or at the best possessing a few simple tools of
metal, should have been able to move and place in position such enormous
blocks of stone. With modern cranes and traction engines all would be
simple, but it might have been thought that in the stone age such
building would be impossible. Thus, for instance, in the 'temple' of
Hagiar Kim in Malta, there is one block of stone which measures 21 feet
by 9, and must weigh many tons. In reality there is little that is
marvellous in the moving and setting up of these blocks, for the tools
needed are ready to the hand of every savage; but there is something to
wonder at and to admire in the patience displayed and in the
organization necessary to carry out such vast pieces of labour. Great,
indeed, must have been the power of the cult which could combine the
force of hundreds and even thousands of individuals for long periods of
time in the construction of the great megalithic temples. Perhaps slave
labour played a part in the work, but in any case it is clear that we
are in the presence of strongly organized governments backed by a
powerful religion which required the building of temples for the gods
and vast tombs for the dead.
Let us consider for a moment what was the procedure in building a simple
megalithic monument. It was fourfold, for it involved the finding and
possibly the quarrying of the stones, the moving of them to the desired
spot, the erection of the uprights in their places, and the placing of
the cover-slab or slabs on top of them.
With regard to the first step it is probable that in most cases the
place chosen for a tomb or cemetery was one in which numbers of great
stones lay on the surface ready to hand. By this means labour was
greatly economized. On the other hand, there are certainly cases where
the stones were brought long distances in order to be used. Thus, in
Charente in France there is at La Perotte a block weighing nearly 40
tons which must have travelled over 18 miles. We have no evidence as to
whether stones were ever actually quarried. If they were, the means used
must have been the stone axe, fire, and water. It was not usual in the
older and simpler dolmens to dress the stones in any way, though in the
later and more complicated structures well-worked blocks were often
used.
The required stones having been found it was now necessary to move them
to the spot. This could be done in two ways. The first and simpler is
that which we see pictured on Egyptian monuments, such as the tomb of
Tahutihotep at El Bersheh. A rough road of beams is laid in the required
direction, and wooden rollers are placed under the stone on this road.
Large numbers of men or oxen then drag the stone along by means of ropes
attached to it. Other labourers assist the work from behind with levers,
and replace the rollers in front of the stone as fast as they pass out
behind. Those who have seen the modern Arabs in excavation work move
huge blocks with wooden levers and palm-leaf rope will realize that for
the building of the dolmens little was needed except numbers and time.
The other method of moving the stones is as follows: a gentle slope of
hard earth covered with wet clay is built with its higher extremity
close beside the block to be moved. As many men as there is room for
stand on each side of the block, and with levers resting on beams or
stones as fulcra, raise the stone vertically as far as possible. Other
men then fill up the space beneath it with earth and stones. The process
is next repeated with higher fulcra, until the stone is level with the
top of the clay slope, on to which it is then slipped. With a little
help it now slides down the inclined plane to the bottom. Here a fresh
slope is built, and the whole procedure is gone through again. The
method can even be used on a slight uphill gradient. It requires less
dragging and more vertical raising than the other, and would thus be
more useful where oxen were unobtainable.
When the stones were once on the spot it is not hard to imagine how they
were set upright with levers and ropes. The placing of the cover-slab
was, however, a more complicated matter. The method employed was
probably to build a slope of earth leading up from one side to the
already erected uprights and almost covering them. Up this the slab
could be moved by means of rollers, ropes, and levers, until it was in
position over the uprights. The slope could then be removed. If the
dolmen was to be partly or wholly covered with a mound, as some
certainly were, it would not even be necessary to remove the slope.
Roughly speaking, the extension of megalithic monuments is from Spain to
Japan and from Sweden to Algeria. These are naturally merely limits, and
it must not be supposed that the regions which lie between them all
contain megalithic monuments. More exactly, we find them in Asia, in
Japan, Corea, India, Persia, Syria, and Palestine. In Africa we have
them along the whole of the north coast, from Tripoli to Morocco; inland
they are not recorded, except for one possible example in Egypt and
several in the Soudan. In Europe the distribution of dolmens and other
megalithic monuments is wide. They occur in the Caucasus and the Crimea,
and quite lately examples have been recorded in Bulgaria. There are none
in Greece, and only a few in Italy, in the extreme south-east corner.
The islands, however, which lie around and to the south of Italy afford
many examples: Corsica, Sardinia, Malta, Gozo, Pantelleria, and
Lampedusa are strongholds of the megalithic civilization, and it is
possible that Sicily should be included in the list. Moving westward we
find innumerable examples in the Spanish Peninsula and in France. To the
north we find them frequent in the British Isles, Sweden, Denmark, and
North Germany; they are rarer in Holland and Belgium. Two examples have
been reported from Switzerland.
It is only to be expected that these great megalithic monuments of a
prehistoric age should excite the wonder and stimulate the imagination
of those who see them. In all countries and at all times they have been
centres of story and legend, and even at the present day many strange
beliefs concerning them are to be found among the peasantry who live
around them. Salomon Reinach has written a remarkable essay on this
question, and the following examples are mainly drawn from the
collection he has there made. The names given to the monuments often
show clearly the ideas with which they are associated in the minds of
the peasants. Thus the Penrith circle is locally known as "Meg and her
Daughters," a dolmen in Berkshire is called "Wayland the Smith's Cave,"
while in one of the Orkney Isles is a menhir named "Odin's Stone." In
France many are connected with Gargantua, whose name, the origin of
which is doubtful, stands clearly for a giant. Thus we find a rock
called the "Chair of Gargantua," a menhir called "Gargantua's Little
Finger," and an _allée couverte_ called "Gargantua's Tomb." Names
indicating connections with fairies, virgins, witches, dwarfs, devils,
saints, druids, and even historical persons are frequent. Dolmens are
often "houses of dwarfs," a name perhaps suggested or at least helped by
the small holes cut in some of them; they are "huts" or "caves of
fairies," they are "kitchens" or "forges of the devil," while menhirs
are called his arrows, and cromlechs his cauldrons. In France we have
stones of various saints, while in England many monuments are connected
with King Arthur. A dolmen in Wales is his quoit; the circle at Penrith
is his round table, and that of Caermarthen is his park. Both in England
and France we find stones and altars "of the druids"; in the Pyrenees,
in Spain, and in Africa there are "graves of the Gentiles" or "tombs of
idolaters"; in Arles (France) the _allées couvertes_ are called
"prisons" or "shops of the Saracens," and the dolmens of the Eastern
Pyrenees are locally known as "huts of the Moors." Dolmens in India are
often "stones of the monkeys," and in France there are "wolves' altars,"
"wolves' houses," and "wolves' tables."
Passing now to more definite beliefs connected with megalithic
monuments, we may notice that from quite early times they have been--as
indeed they often are still--regarded with fear and respect, and even
worshipped. In certain parts of France peasants are afraid to shelter
under the dolmens, and never think of approaching them by night. In
early Christian days there must have been a cult of the menhir, for the
councils of Arles (A.D. 452), of Tours (A.D. 567), and of Nantes (A.D.
658) all condemn the cult of trees, springs, and _stones_. In A.D. 789
Charlemagne attempted to suppress stone-worship, and to destroy the
stones themselves. In Spain, where, as in France, megalithic monuments
are common, the councils of Toledo in A.D. 681 and 682 condemned the
"Worshippers of Stones." Moreover there are many cases in which a
monument itself bears traces of having been the centre of a cult in
early or medieval times. The best example is perhaps the dolmen of
Saint-Germain-sur-Vienne, which was transformed into a chapel about the
twelfth century. Similar transformations have been made in Spain. In
many cases, too, crosses have been placed or engraved on menhirs in
order to "Christianize" them.
Remarkable powers and virtues have been attributed to many of the
monuments. One of the dolmens of Finistère is said to cure rheumatism in
anyone who rubs against the loftiest of its stones, and another heals
fever patients who sleep under it. Stones with holes pierced in them are
believed to be peculiarly effective, and it suffices to pass the
diseased limb or, when possible, the invalid himself through the hole.
Oaths sworn in or near a megalithic monument have a peculiar sanctity.
In Scotland as late as the year A.D. 1438 "John off Erwyne and Will
Bernardson swor on the Hirdmane Stein before oure Lorde ye Erie off
Orknay and the gentiless off the cuntre."
Many of the monuments are endowed by the credulous with life. The menhir
du Champ Dolent sinks an inch every hundred years. Others say that a
piece of it is eaten by the moon each night, and that when it is
completely devoured the Last Judgment will take place. The stones of
Carnac bathe in the sea once a year, and many of those of the Périgord
leap three times each day at noon.
We have already remarked on the connection of the monuments with dwarfs,
giants, and mythical personages. There is an excellent example in our
own country in Berkshire. Here when a horse has cast a shoe the rider
must leave it in front of the dolmen called "The Cave of Wayland the
Smith," placing at the same time a coin on the cover-stone. He must then
retire for a suitable period, after which he returns to find the horse
shod and the money gone.
CHAPTER II
STONEHENGE AND OTHER GREAT STONE
MONUMENTS IN ENGLAND AND WALES
Stonehenge, the most famous of our English megalithic monuments, has
excited the attention of the historian and the legend-lover since early
times. According to some of the medieval historians it was erected by
Aurelius Ambrosius to the memory of a number of British chiefs whom
Hengist and his Saxons treacherously murdered in A.D. 462. Others add
that Ambrosius himself was buried there. Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote
in the twelfth century, mingles these accounts with myth. He says,
"There was in Ireland, in ancient times, a pile of stones worthy of
admiration called the Giants' Dance, because giants from the remotest
part of Africa brought them to Ireland, and in the plains of Kildare,
not far from the castle of Naas, miraculously set them up.... These
stones (according to the British history) Aurelius Ambrosius, King of
the Britons, procured Merlin by supernatural means to bring from Ireland
to Britain."
From the present ruined state of Stonehenge it is not possible to state
with certainty what was the original arrangement, but it is probable
that it was approximately as follows (see frontispiece):
[Illustration: FIG. 1. Plan of Stonehenge in 1901. (After
_Archæologia_.) The dotted stones are of porphyritic diabase.]
There was an outer circle of about thirty worked upright stones of
square section (Fig. I). On each pair of these rested a horizontal
block, but only five now remain in position. These 'lintels' probably
formed a continuous architrave (Pl. I). The diameter of this outer
circle is about 97-1/2 feet, inner measurement. The stones used are
sarsens or blocks of sandstone, such as are to be found lying about in
many parts of the district round Stonehenge.
[Illustration: Plate I. STONEHENGE FROM THE SOUTH-WEST
Photo Graphotone Co. To face p. 17]
Well within this circle stood the five huge trilithons (_a-e_), arranged
in the form of a horseshoe with its open side to the north-east. Each
trilithon, as the name implies, consists of three stones, two of which
are uprights, the third being laid horizontally across the top. The
height of the trilithons varies from 16 to 21-1/2 feet, the lowest being
the two that stand at the open end of the horseshoe, and the highest
that which is at the apex. Here again all the stones are sarsens and all
are carefully worked. On the top end of each upright of the trilithons
is an accurately cut tenon which dovetails into two mortices cut one at
each end of the lower surface of the horizontal block. Each upright of
the outer circle had a double tenon, and the lintels, besides being
morticed to take these tenons, were also dovetailed each into its two
neighbours.
Within the horseshoe and close up to it stand the famous blue-stones,
now twelve in number, but originally perhaps more. These stones are not
so high as the trilithons, the tallest reaching only 7-1/2 feet. They
are nearly all of porphyritic diabase. It has often been asserted that
these blue-stones must have been brought to Stonehenge from a distance,
as they do not occur anywhere in the district. Some have suggested that
they came from Wales or Cornwall, or even by sea from Ireland. Now, the
recent excavations have shown that the blue-stones were brought to
Stonehenge in a rough state, and that all the trimming was done on the
spot where they were erected. It seems unlikely that if they had been
brought from a distance the rough trimming should not have been done on
the spot where they were found, in order to decrease their weight for
transport. It is therefore possible that the stones were erratic blocks
found near Stonehenge.
Within the horseshoe, and near its apex, lies the famous "Altar Stone"
(A), a block measuring about 16 feet by 4. Between the horseshoe and the
outer circle another circle of diabase stones is sometimes said to have
existed, but very little of it now remains.
The whole building is surrounded by a rampart of earth several feet
high, forming a circle about 300 feet in diameter. An avenue still 1200
feet in length, bordered by two walls of earth, leads up to the rampart
from the north-east. On the axis of this avenue and nearly at its
extremity stands the upright stone known as the Friar's Heel.
In 1901, in the course of repairing the central trilithon, careful
excavations were carried out over a small area at Stonehenge. More than
a hundred stone implements were found, of which the majority were flint
axes, probably used for dressing the softer of the sandstone blocks, and
also for excavating the chalk into which the uprights were set. About
thirty hammer-stones suitable for holding in the hand were found. These
were doubtless used for dressing the surface of the blocks. Most
remarkable of all were the 'mauls,' large boulders weighing from 36 to
64 pounds, used for smashing blocks and also for removing large chips
from the surfaces. Several antlers of deer were found, one of which had
been worn down by use as a pickaxe.
These excavations made it clear that the blue-stones had been shaped on
the spot, whereas the sarsens had been roughly prepared at the place
where they were found, and only finished off on the spot where they were
erected.
What is the date of the erection of Stonehenge? The finding of so many
implements of flint in the excavations of 1901 shows that the structure
belongs to a period when flint was still largely used. The occurrence of
a stain of oxide of copper on a worked block of stone at a depth of 7
feet does not necessarily prove that the stones were erected in the
bronze age, for the stain may have been caused by the disintegration of
malachite and not of metallic copper. At the same time, we must not
infer from the frequency of the flint implements that metal was unknown,
for flint continued to be used far on into the early metal age.
Moreover, flint tools when worn out were simply thrown aside on the
spot, while those of metal were carefully set apart for sharpening or
re-casting, and are thus seldom found in large numbers in an excavation.
We have, therefore, no means of accurately determining the date of
Stonehenge; all that can be said is that the occurrence of flint in such
large quantities points either to the neolithic age or to a
comparatively early date in the copper or bronze period. It is unlikely
that stone tools would play such a considerable rôle in the late bronze
or the iron age.
At the same time it must not be forgotten that Sir Arthur Evans has
spoken in favour of a date in the first half of the third century B.C.
He believes that the great circles are religious monuments which in form
developed out of the round barrows, and that Stonehenge is therefore
much later than some at least of the round barrows around it. That it is
earlier than others is clear from the occurrence in some of them of
chips from the sarsen stones. He therefore places its building late in
the round barrow period, and sees confirmation of this in the fact that
the round barrows which surround the monument are not grouped in regular
fashion around it, as they should have been had they been later in
date.
Many attempts have been made to date the monuments by means of
astronomy. All these start from the assumption that it was erected in
connection with the worship of the sun, or at least in order to take
certain observations with regard to the sun. Sir Norman Lockyer noticed
that the avenue at Stonehenge pointed approximately to the spot where
the sun rises at the midsummer solstice, and therefore thought that
Stonehenge was erected to observe this midsummer rising. If he could
find the exact direction of the avenue he would know where the sun rose
at midsummer in the year when the circle was built. From this he could
easily fix the date, for, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, the
point of the midsummer rising is continually altering, and the position
for any year being known the date of that year can be found
astronomically. But how was the precise direction of this very irregular
avenue to be fixed? The line from the altar stone to the Friar's Heel,
which is popularly supposed to point to the midsummer rising, has
certainly never done so in the last ten thousand years, and therefore
could not be used as the direction of the avenue. Eventually Sir Norman
decided to use a line from the centre of the circle to a modern
benchmark on Sidbury Hill, eight miles north-east of Stonehenge. On this
line the sun rose in 1680 B.C. with a possible error of two hundred
years each way: this Sir Norman takes to be the date of Stonehenge.
Sir Norman's reasoning has been severely handled by his
fellow-astronomer Mr. Hinks, who points out that the direction chosen
for the avenue is purely arbitrary, since Sidbury Hill has no connection
with Stonehenge at all. Moreover, Sir Norman determines sunrise for
Stonehenge as being the instant when the edge of the sun's disk first
appears, while in his attempts to date the Egyptian temple of Karnak he
defined it as the moment when the sun's centre reached the horizon. We
cannot say which alternative the builders would have chosen, and
therefore we cannot determine the date of building.
Sir Norman Lockyer has since modified his views. He now argues that the
trilithons and outer circle are later additions to an earlier temple to
which the blue-stones belong. This earlier temple was made to observe
"primarily but not exclusively the May year," while the later temple
"represented a change of cult, and was dedicated primarily to the
solstitial year." This view seems to be disproved by the excavations of
1901, which made it clear that the trilithons were erected before and
not after the blue-stones.
Nothing is more likely than that the builders of the megaliths had some
knowledge of the movements of the sun in connection with the seasons,
and that their priests or wise men determined for them, by observing the
sun, the times of sowing, reaping, etc., as they do among many savage
tribes at the present day. They may have been worshippers of the sun,
and their temples may have contained 'observation lines' for determining
certain of his movements. But the attempt to date the monuments from
such lines involves so many assumptions and is affected by so many
disturbing elements that it can never have a serious value for the
archæologist. The uncertainty is even greater in the case of temples
supposed to be oriented by some star, for in this case there is almost
always a choice of two or more bright stars, giving the most divergent
results.
[Illustration: FIG. 2. Avebury and the Kennet Avenue.
(After Sir R. Colt Hoare.)]
Next in importance to Stonehenge comes the huge but now almost destroyed
circle of Avebury (Fig. 2). Its area is five times as great as that of
St. Peter's in Rome, and a quarter of a million people could stand
within it. It consists in the first place of a rampart of earth roughly
circular in form and with a diameter of about 1200 feet. Within this is
a ditch, and close on the inner edge of this was a circle of about a
hundred upright stones. Within this circle were two pairs of concentric
circles with their centres slightly east of the north-and-south diameter
of the great circle. The diameters of the outer circles of these two
pairs are 350 and 325 feet respectively. In the centre of the northern
pair was a cover-slab supported by three uprights, and in the centre of
the southern a single menhir. All the stones used are sarsens, such as
are strewn everywhere over the district.
An avenue flanked by two rows of stones ran in a south-easterly
direction from the rampart towards the village of Kennet for a distance
of about 1430 yards in a straight line.
At a distance of 1200 yards due south from Avebury Circle stands the
famous artificial mound called Silbury Hill. It is 552 feet in diameter,
130 in height, and has a flat top 102 feet across. A pit was driven down
into its centre in 1777, and in 1849 a trench was cut into it from the
south side to the centre, but neither gave any result. It is quite
possible that there are burials in the mound, whether in megalithic
chambers or not.
South-west of Avebury is Hakpen Hill, where there once stood two
concentric ellipses of stones. A straight avenue is said to have run
from these in a north-westerly direction. Whether these three monuments
near Avebury have any connection with one another and, if so, what this
connection is, is unknown.
There are many other circles in England, but we have only space to
mention briefly some of the more important. At Rollright, in
Oxfordshire, there is a circle 100 feet in diameter with a tall menhir
50 yards to the north-east. Derbyshire possesses a famous monument, that
of Arbor Low, where a circle is surrounded by a rampart and ditch, while
that of Stanton Drew in Somerset consists of a great circle A and two
smaller circles B and C. The line joining the centres of B and A passes
through a menhir called Hauptville's Quoit away to the north-east, while
that which joins the centres of C and A cuts a group of three menhirs
called The Cove, lying to the south-west.
In Cumberland there are several circles. One of these, 330 feet in
diameter with an outstanding menhir, is known as "Long Meg and her
Daughters." Another, the Mayborough Circle, is of much the same size,
but consists of a tall monolith in the centre of a rampart formed
entirely of rather small water-worn stones. A similar circle not far
from this is known as King Arthur's Round Table; here, however, there is
no monolith. Near Keswick there is a finely preserved circle, and at
Shap there seems to have existed a large circle with an avenue of stones
running for over a mile to the north.
Cornwall possesses a number of fine monuments. The most celebrated is
the Dance Maen Circle, which is 76 feet in diameter and has two
monoliths to the north-east, out of sight of the circle, but stated to
be in a straight line with its centre. Local tradition calls the circle
"The Merry Maidens," and has it that the stones are girls turned into
stones for dancing on Sunday: the two monoliths are called the Pipers.
The three circles known as the Hurlers lie close together with their
centres nearly in a straight line in the direction N.N.E. by S.S.W. At
Boscawen-un, near Penzance, is a circle called the Nine Maidens, and two
circles near Tregeseal have the same name. Another well-known circle in
Cornwall is called the Stripple Stones: the circle stands on a platform
of earth surrounded by a ditch, outside which is a rampart. In the
centre is a menhir 12 feet in height.
At Merivale, in Somersetshire, there are the remains of a small circle,
to the north of which lie two almost parallel double lines of menhirs,
running about E.N.E. by W.S.W., the more southerly of the two lines
overlapping the other at both extremities.
With what purpose were these great circles erected? We have already
mentioned the curious belief of Geoffrey of Monmouth with regard to
Stonehenge, and we may pass on to more modern theories. James I was
once taken to see Stonehenge when on a visit to the Earl of Pembroke at
Wilton. He was so interested that he ordered his architect Inigo Jones
to enquire into its date and purpose. The architect's conclusion was
that it was a Roman temple "dedicated to the god Caelus and built after
the Tuscan order."
Many years later Dr. Stukeley started a theory which has not entirely
been abandoned at the present day. For him Stonehenge and other stone
circles were temples of the druids. This was in itself by no means a
ridiculous theory, but Stukeley went further than this. Relying on a
quaint story in Pliny wherein the druids of Gaul are said to use as a
charm a certain magic egg manufactured by snakes, he imagined that the
druids were serpent-worshippers, and essayed to see serpents even in the
forms of their temples. Thus in the Avebury group the circle on Hakpen
Hill was for him the head of a snake and its avenue part of the body.
The Avebury circles were coils in the body, which was completed by the
addition of imaginary stones and avenues. He also attempted with even
less success to see the form of a serpent in other British circle
groups.
The druids, as we gather from the rather scanty references in Cæsar and
other Roman authors, were priests of the Celts in Gaul. Suetonius
further speaks of druids in Anglesey, and tradition has it that in Wales
and Ireland there were druids in pre-Christian times. But that druids
ever existed in England or in a tithe of the places in which megalithic
circles and other monuments occur is unlikely. At the same time, it is
not impossible that some of the circles of Ireland, Wales, and France
were afterwards used by the druids as suitable places for meeting and
preaching.
Fergusson in his great work _Rude Stone Monuments_ held a remarkable
view as to the purpose of the British stone circles. He believed that
they were partly Roman in date, and that some of them at least marked
the scene of battles fought by King Arthur against the Saxons. Thus, for
example, he says with regard to Avebury, "I feel it will come eventually
to be acknowledged that those who fell in Arthur's twelfth and greatest
battle were buried in the ring at Avebury, and that those who survived
raised these stones and the mound of Silbury in the vain hope that they
would convey to their latest posterity the memory of their prowess." It
is hardly necessary to take this view seriously nowadays. Stonehenge,
which Fergusson attributes to the same late era, has been proved by
excavation to be prehistoric in origin, and with it naturally go the
rest of the megalithic circles of England, except where there is any
certain proof to the contrary.
The most probable theory is that the circles are religious monuments of
some kind. What the nature of the worship carried on in them was it is
quite impossible to determine. It may be that some at least were built
near the graves of deified heroes to whose worship they were
consecrated. On the other hand, it is possible that they were temples
dedicated to the sun or to others of the heavenly bodies. Whether they
served for the taking of astronomical observations or not is a question
which cannot be decided with certainty, though the frequency with which
menhirs occur in directions roughly north-east of the circles is
considered by some as a sign of connection with the watching of solar
phenomena.
Dolmens of simple type are not common in England, though they occur with
comparative frequency in Wales, where the best known are the so-called
Arthur's Quoit near Swansea, the dolmen of Pentre Ifan in Pembrokeshire,
and that of Plas Newydd on the Menai Strait: in Anglesey they are quite
common. In England we have numerous examples in Cornwall, especially
west of Falmouth, among which are Chun Quoit and Lanyon Quoit. There are
dolmens at Chagford and Drewsteignton in Devonshire, and there is one
near the Rollright Circle in Oxfordshire.
Many of the so-called cromlechs of England are not true dolmens, but the
remains of tombs of more complicated types. Thus the famous Kit's Coty
House in Kent was certainly not a dolmen, though it is now impossible to
say what its form was. Wayland the Smith's Cave was probably a
three-chambered corridor-tomb covered with a mound. The famous
Men-an-tol in Cornwall may well be all that is left of a chamber-tomb of
some kind. It is a slab about 3-1/2 feet square, in which is a hole
1-1/2 feet in diameter. There are other stones standing or lying around
it. It is known to the peasants as the Crickstone, for it was said to
cure sufferers from rickets or crick in the back if they passed nine
times through the hole in a direction against the sun. The Isle of Man
possesses a fine sepulchral monument on Meayll Hill. It consist of six
T-shaped chamber-tombs arranged in a circle with entrances to the north
and south. There is also a corridor-tomb, known as King Orry's Grave, at
Laxey, and another with a semicircular façade at Maughold.
Among the megalithic monuments of our islands the chambered barrows hold
an important place. It is well known that in the neolithic period the
dead in certain parts of England were buried under mounds of not
circular but elongated shape. These graves are commonest in Wiltshire
and the surrounding counties of Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, and
Gloucestershire. A few exist in other counties. Some contain no chamber,
while others contain a structure of the megalithic type. It is with
these latter that we have here to deal. Chambered long barrows are most
frequent in Wiltshire, though they do occur in other counties, as, for
example, Buckinghamshire, where the famous Cave of Wayland the Smith is
certainly the remains of a barrow of this kind. In Derbyshire and
Staffordshire a type of chambered mound does occur, but it seems
uncertain from the description given whether it is round or elongated.
[Illustration: FIG. 3. (_a_)--Barrow at Stoney Littleton, Somersetshire.
(_b_)--Barrow at Rodmarton, Gloucestershire.
(_c_)--Chambers of barrow at Uley, Gloucestershire.
(After Thurnam, _Archæologia,_ XLII.)]
Turning first to the Wiltshire and Gloucestershire group of barrows we
find that they are usually from 120 to 200 feet in length and from 30 to
60 in breadth. In some cases there is a wall of dry stone-masonry around
the foot of the mound and outside this a ditch. The megalithic chambers
within the mound are of three types. In the first there is a central
gallery entering the mound at its thicker end and leading to a chamber
or series of chambers (Fig. 3, _a_ and _c_). Where this gallery enters
the mound there is a cusp-shaped break in the outline of the mound as
marked by the dry walling, and the entrance is closed by a stone block.
The chambers are formed of large slabs set up on edge. Occasionally
there are spaces between successive slabs, and these are filled up with
dry masonry. The roof is made either by laying large slabs across the
tops of the sides or by corbelling with smaller slabs as at Stoney
Littleton.
In the second type of chambered barrow there is no central corridor, but
chambers are built in opposite pairs on the outside edge of the mound
and opening outwards (Fig. 3, _b_). The two best known examples of this
are the tumuli of Avening and of Rodmarton.
In the third type of barrow there is no chamber connected with the
outside, but its place is taken by several dolmens--so small as to be
mere cists--within the mound.
The burials in these barrows seem to have been without exception
inhumations. The body was placed in the crouched position, either
sitting up or reclining. In an untouched chamber at Rodmarton were found
as many as thirteen bodies, and in the eastern chamber at Charlton's
Abbott there were twelve. With the bodies lay pottery, vases, and
implements of flint and bone.
CHAPTER III
MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND
The stone circles of Scotland have been divided into three types--the
Western Scottish, consisting of a rather irregular ring or pair of
concentric rings; the Inverness type, in which a chamber entered by a
straight passage is covered by a round tumulus with a retaining wall of
stone, the whole being surrounded by a regular stone circle; and the
Aberdeen type, which is similar to the last, but has a 'recumbent' stone
between two of the uprights of its outer circle.
The first type occurs in the southern counties, in the islands of the
west and north coasts, and also extends into Argyll and Perthshire. The
most famous example is the Callernish Circle in the Isle of Lewis. The
circle is formed by thirteen stones from 12 to 15 feet high, and its
centre is marked by an upright 17 feet high. From the circle extends a
line of four stones to the east and another to the west. To the south
runs a line of five uprights and several fallen stones, and to the
N.N.E. runs a double line, forming as it were an avenue with nine
stones on one side and ten on the other, but having no entrance to the
circle. Inside the circle, between the central stone and the east side
of the ring, is what is described as a cruciform grave with three cells
under a low tumulus. In this tomb were found fragments of human bone
apparently burnt. It has been suggested that the tomb is not part of the
original structure, but was added later.
The native tradition about this circle as repeated by Martin in 1700 was
that it was a druidical place of worship, and that the chief druid stood
near the central stone to address the assembled people. This tradition
seems to have now disappeared.
In the island of Arran, between Brodick and Lamlash, is a damaged circle
21 feet in diameter. At a distance of 60 feet from its circumference in
a direction 35° east of south is a stone 4 feet high. In the centre of
the circle was found a cist cut in the underlying rock containing bluish
earth and pieces of bone. Above were an implement and some fragments of
flint.
On the other side of the island there were still in 1860 remains of
eight circles, five of sandstone and three of granite, quite close to
one another. The diameter of the largest was 63 feet, and the highest
stone reached 18 feet. One of them was a double ring. In four of them
were found cists containing pottery, flint arrow-heads, a piece of a
bronze pin, and some fragments of bone. Others appear to contain no
cists.
In the other islands of the west coast few circles seem to remain; there
are, however, one at Kirkabrost in Skye, and another at Kingarth in
Bute.
At Stromness in Orkney is the famous circle called the Ring of Brogar.
It originally consisted of sixty stones forming a circle 340 feet in
diameter, outside which was a ditch 29 feet wide. In a direction 60°
east of south from the centre, and at a distance of 63 chains, is a
standing stone called the Watchstone, 18 feet high, and 42 or 43 chains
further on in the same line is a second stone, the Barnstone, 15 feet
high. To the left of this line are two stones apparently placed at
random, and to the right are the few remaining blocks of the Ring of
Stenness, somewhere to the north of which was the celebrated pierced
block called the "Stone of Odin," destroyed early in the last century.
At a distance of 42 or 43 chains to the north-east of the Barnstone lies
the tumulus of Maeshowe. This tumulus conceals a long gallery leading
into a rectangular chamber. The walls of this latter are built of
horizontal courses of stones, except at the corners, where there are
tall, vertically-placed slabs. The chamber has three niches or recesses,
one on each of its closed sides. The roof is formed by corbelling the
walls and finishing off with slabs laid across. If one sits within the
chamber and looks in a direct line along the passage one sees the
Barnstone.
A series of measurements and alignments have been taken to connect the
Maeshowe tumulus with the Ring of Brogar. Thus we have already seen that
the distance from the Barnstone to the Watchstone is the same as from
the Barnstone to the tumulus. Moreover, the Watchstone is equidistant
from the ring and from the tumulus. Again, a line from the Barnstone to
the tumulus passes through the point of the midsummer sunrise and also,
on the other horizon, through the point of the setting sun ten days
before the winter solstice; the line from the Watchstone to the Brogar
Ring marks the setting of the sun at the Beltane festival in May and its
rising ten days before the winter solstice, while the line from Maeshowe
to the Watchstone is in the line of the equinoctial rising and setting.
These alignments are the work of Mr. Magnus Spence; readers must choose
what importance they will assign to them.
The Inverness type of circle is entirely different from that of which we
have been speaking. The finest examples were at Clava, seven miles from
Inverness, where fifty years ago there were eight still in existence.
One of these is still partly preserved. It consists of a circle 100 feet
in diameter consisting of twelve stones. Within this is a cairn of
stones with a circular retaining wall of stone blocks 2 or 3 feet high.
The cairn originally covered a circular stone chamber 12-1/2 feet in
diameter entered by a straight passage on its south-west side. In other
words, the Inverness monuments are simply chamber-tombs covered with a
cairn and surrounded by a circle.
Around Aberdeen we find the third type of circle. It consists of a
cist-tomb covered by a low mound, often with a retaining wall of small
blocks, but there is no entrance passage leading into the cist. Outside
the whole is a circle of large upright blocks with this peculiarity,
that between the two highest--generally to the south or slightly east of
south--lies a long block on its side, occupying the whole interval
between them. The uprights nearest this 'recumbent' block are the
tallest in the circle, and the size of the rest decreases towards the
north. Of thirty circles known near Aberdeen twenty-six still possess
the 'recumbent' stone, and in others it may originally have existed.
Passing now to monuments of more definitely sepulchral type we find that
the dolmen is not frequent in Scotland, though several are known in the
lowlands and in part of Argyllshire.
To the long barrows of England answer in part at least the chambered
cairns of Caithness and the Orkneys. The best known type is a long
rectangular horned cairn (Fig. 4), of which there are two fine examples
near Yarhouse. The largest is 240 feet in length. The chamber is
circular, and roofed partly by corbelling and partly by a large slab. In
the cairn of Get we have a shorter and wider example of the horned type.
Another type is circular or elliptical. In a cairn of this sort at
Canister an iron knife was found. On the Holm of Papa-Westra in the
Orkneys there is an elliptical cairn of this kind containing a long
rectangular chamber running along its major axis with seven small
circular niches opening off it. The entrance passage lies on the minor
axis of the barrow.
[Illustration: FIG. 4. Horned tumulus at Garrywhin, Caithness.
(After Montelius.)]
The megalithic monuments of Ireland are extremely numerous, and are
found in almost every part of the country. They offer a particular
interest from the fact that though they are of few different types they
display all the stages by which the more complex were developed from the
more simple. It must be remembered that most if not all the monuments we
shall describe were originally covered by mounds of earth, though in
most cases these have disappeared.
The simple dolmen is found in almost all parts of the country. Its
single cover-slab is supported by a varying number of uprights,
sometimes as few as three, oftener four or more. It is of great
importance to notice the fact that here in Ireland, as elsewhere in the
megalithic area, e.g. Sardinia, we have the round and rectangular
dolmens in juxtaposition (Fig. 5, _a_ and _c_).
[Illustration: FIG. 5. Type-plans of _(a)_ the round dolmen;
_(b)_ the dolmen with portico;
_(c)_ the rectangular dolmen.]
Occasionally one of the end-blocks of the dolmen instead of just
closing up the space between the two nearest side-blocks is pushed back
between them so as to form with them a small three-sided portico outside
the chamber, but still under the shelter of the cover-slab (Fig. 5,
_b_). A good example of this exists at Gaulstown, Waterford, where a
table-stone weighing 6 tons rests on six uprights, three of which form
the little portico just described. The famous dolmen of Carrickglass,
Sligo, is a still more developed example of this type. Here the chamber
is an accurate rectangle, and the portico is formed by adding two
side-slabs outside one of the end-slabs, but still under the cover. This
last is a remarkable block of limestone weighing about 70 tons. This
form of tomb is without doubt a link between the simple dolmen and the
corridor-tomb. The portico was at first built under the slab by pushing
an end-stone inwards. Then external side-stones formed the portico,
though still under the slab. The next move was to construct the portico
outside the slab. The portico then needed a roof, and the addition of a
second cover to provide it completed the transition to the simpler
corridor-tomb. In many cases the Irish simple dolmens were surrounded by
a circle of upright stones. At Carrowmore, Sligo, there seems to have
been a veritable cemetery of dolmen-tombs, each of which has one or more
circles around it, the outermost being 120 feet in diameter. The tombs
in these Carrowmore circles were not always simple dolmens, but often
corridor-tombs of more or less complicated types. Their excavation has
not given very definite results. In many cases human bones have been
found in considerable quantities, sometimes in a calcined condition; but
there is no real evidence to show that cremation was the burial rite
practised. The calcination of human bones may well have been caused by
the lighting of fires in the tomb, either at some funeral ceremony, or
in even later days, when the place was used as a shelter for peasants. A
few poor flints were found and a little pottery, together with many
bones of animals and some pins and borers of bone. The most important
find made, however, was a small conical button made of bone with two
holes pierced in its flat side and meeting in the middle. It is a type
which occurs in Europe only at the period of transition from the age of
stone to that of bronze, and usually in connection with megalithic
monuments.
[Illustration: FIG. 6. Type-plan of the simple rectangular corridor-tomb
or _allée couverte_.]
We pass on now to consider the simplest form of corridor-tomb, that in
which there are several cover-slabs, but no separate chamber (Fig. 6).
These tombs occur in most parts of Ireland. At Carrick-a-Dhirra, County
Waterford, there is a perfect example of the most simple type. The tomb
is exactly rectangular and lies east and west, with a length of 19 feet
and a breadth of 7-1/2. At each end is a single upright, and each long
side consists of seven. The chamber thus formed is roofed by five slabs.
The whole was surrounded by a circle of about twenty-six stones, and no
doubt the chamber was originally covered by a mound. In a somewhat
similar example at Coolback, Fermanagh, the remains of the elliptical
cairn are still visible.
But in most cases the plan of the corridor-tomb is complicated by a kind
of outer lining of blocks which was added to it. Most of the monuments
are so damaged that it is difficult to see what the exact form of this
lining was. Whether it merely consisted of a line of upright blocks
close around the sides of the chamber or whether these supported some
further structure which covered up the whole chamber it is difficult to
say. In some cases the roof-slab actually covers the outer line of
blocks, and here it seems certain that this outer line served simply to
reinforce the chamber walls, the space between being filled with earth
or rubble. However, at Labbamologa, County Cork, is a tomb called Leaba
Callighe, in which this was certainly not the case. The length of the
whole monument is about 42 feet. The slabs cover the inner walls of the
chamber, but not the outer lining: this last forms a kind of outer shell
to the whole monument. It is shaped roughly like a ship, and runs to a
point at the east end, thus representing the bow. The west end is
damaged, but may have been pointed like the east. The whole reminds one
very forcibly of the _naus_ of the Balearic Isles and the Giants' Graves
of Sardinia. Occasionally the corridor-tomb has a kind of portico at its
west end.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. Type-plan of wedge-shaped tomb. The roof slabs
are two or more in number.]
In Munster the corridor-tomb takes a peculiar form (Fig. 7). It lies
roughly east and west, and its two long sides are placed at a slight
angle to one another in such a way that the west end is broader than the
east. In a good example of this at Keamcorravooly, County Cork, there
are two large capstones and the walls consist of double rows of slabs,
the outer being still beneath the cover-slabs. On the upper surface of
the covers are several small cup-shaped hollows, some of which at least
have been produced artificially.
These wedge-shaped structures are of remarkable interest, for exactly
the same broadening of the west end is found in Scandinavia, in the
_Hünenbetter_ of Holland, in the corridor-tombs of Portugal, and in the
dolmens of the Deccan in India.
In some Irish tombs the corridor leads to a well-defined chamber. In a
curious tomb at Carrickard, Sligo, the chamber was rectangular and lay
across the end of the corridor in such a way as to form a T. The whole
seems to have been covered with an oval mound. In another at Highwood in
the same county a long corridor joins two small circular chambers, the
total length being 44 feet. The corridor was once divided into four
sections by cross-slabs. The cairn which covered this tomb was
triangular in form.
In the county of Meath, in the parish of Lough Crew, is a remarkable
series of stone cairns extending for three miles along the
Slieve-na-Callighe Hills. These cairns conceal chamber-tombs. The cairns
themselves are roughly circular, and the largest have a circle of
upright blocks round the base. The chambers are built of upright slabs
and are roofed by corbelling. Cairn H covered a corridor leading to a
chamber and opening off on each side into a side-chamber, the whole
group thus being cruciform. In these chambers were found human remains
and objects of flint, bone, earthenware, amber, glass, bronze, and iron.
Cairn L had a central corridor from which opened off seven chambers in a
very irregular fashion. Cairn T consisted of a corridor leading to a
fine octagonal chamber with small chambers off it on three sides.
The chief interest of these tombs lies in the remarkable designs
engraved on some of the stones of the passages and chambers. They are
fairly deeply cut with a rather sharp implement, probably a metal
chisel. They are arranged in the most arbitrary way on the stones and
are often crowded together in masses. There is no attempt to depict
scenes of any kind, nor is there, indeed, any example of animal life. In
fact, the designs seem to be purely ornamental. The most frequent
elements of design are cup-shaped hollows, concentric circles or ovals,
star-shaped figures, circles with emanating rays, spirals, chevrons,
reticulated figures, parallel straight or curved lines. There seems to
be no clue as to the meaning of these designs. They may have been merely
ornamental, though this is hardly likely.
At New Grange, near Drogheda, there is a similar series of tumuli, one
of which has become famous (Fig. 8). It consists of a huge mound of
stones 280 feet in diameter surrounded by a circle of upright blocks.
Access to the corridor is gained from the south-east side. This corridor
leads to a chamber with three divisions, so that corridor and chambers
together form a cross with a long shaft. The walls are formed of rough
slabs set upright. In the passage the roof is of slabs laid right
across, but the roof of the chamber is formed by corbelling. On the
floor of each division of the chamber was found a stone basin.
[Illustration: Figure 8. Corridor-tomb at New Grange, Ireland (Coffey,
_Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, 1892.)]
Around the edge of the mound runs an enclosure wall of stones lying on
the ground edge to edge. A few of these are sculptured. The finest is a
great stone which lies in front of the entrance and shows a
well-arranged design of spirals and lozenges. There are also engravings
on one of the stones of the chambers. These designs are in general more
skilful than those of Lough Crew. They consist mainly of chevrons,
lozenges, spirals, and triangles.
The monuments we have so far described are all tombs. Ireland also
possesses several stone circles. The largest are situated round Lough
Gur, 10 or 12 miles south of Limerick. There was at one time a fine
circle west of Lough Gur at Rockbarton, but it is now destroyed. On the
eastern edge of the lough is a double concentric ring of stones, the
diameter of the inner circle being about 100 feet. The rings are 6 feet
apart, and the space between them is filled up with earth. In 1869 an
excavation was made within the circle and revealed some human remains,
mostly those of children from six to eight years old.
Further north is a remarkable group of monuments known as the
Carrigalla circles. The first is a plain circle (L) 33 or 34 feet in
diameter, composed of twenty-eight stones. The space within them is
filled up with earth to form a raised platform. At a distance of 75 feet
are two concentric circles, diameters 155 and 184 feet respectively,
made of stones 5 or 6 feet high. The space between the two circles is
filled with earth. Within these is a third concentric circle about 48
feet in diameter made of stones of the same size. This group of three
concentric circles we will call M. The line joining the centres of L and
M runs in a direction of 29° or 30° west of north and passes through a
stone (N) 8 feet high standing on the top of a ridge 2500 feet away.
There are two other stones more to the west (O and P) in such a position
that the line joining them (41° west of north) passes through the centre
of M, from which they are distant 860 and 1450 feet respectively.
Further, a line through the centre of L and a great standing stone (Q)
2480 feet from it in a direction 10° east of south passes through the
highest point in the district, 1615 feet away and 492 feet in height.
Mr. Lewis compares this group of monuments with that of Stanton Drew in
Somersetshire. In both a line joining the centre of two circles passes
through a single stone in a northerly direction, and there is in both a
fixed line from the centre of the larger circle. Captain Boyle
Somerville, R.N., finds that the line 29° or 30° west of north would
mark the setting of Capella in B.C. 1600, or Arcturus 500 B.C.; he adds
that the direction 41° west of north would suit Capella in 2500 B.C. or
Castor in 2000 B.C.
On the west side of Lough Gur is another group of monuments. There is in
the first place a circle 55 feet in diameter. On a line 35° east of
north from this is a stone 10 feet high, and the same line produced
strikes a prominent hill-top. Somewhere to the south-west of this
circle, perhaps with its centre in the line just described, lay a second
circle between 150 and 170 feet in diameter, destroyed in 1870. Three
other stones mentioned by early writers as being near the circles have
now disappeared. The direction 35° east of north is the same as that of
the King-stone with regard to the Rollright Circle in Oxfordshire. This
line, allowing a height of 3° for the horizon, would, according to Sir
Norman Lockyer, have struck the rising points of Capella in 1700 B.C.
and Arcturus in 500 B.C.
To the south of the destroyed circle is another about 150 to 155 feet in
diameter, with stones of over 5 feet in height set close together. Earth
is piled up outside them to form a bank 30 feet wide. There is an
entrance 3 feet wide in a direction 59° east of north from the centre of
the circle. There is said to have been at one time a cromlech 100 feet
wide due south of the circle and connected with it by a paved way. Sir
Norman Lockyer thinks that the position of the doorway is connected with
observation of the sun's rising in May. Moreover, the tallest stone of
the circle, 9 feet high, is 30° east of north from the centre, a
direction which according to him points to the rising of Capella in 1950
B.C. and Arcturus in 280 B.C.
CHAPTER IV
THE SCANDINAVIAN MEGALITHIC AREA
In Scandinavia megalithic monuments abound. They have been studied with
unusual care from quite an early date in the history of archæology, and
classified in the order of their development. The earliest type appears
to be the simple dolmen with either four or five sides and a very rough
cover-slab. This and the upper part of the sides remained uncovered by
the mound of earth which was always heaped round the tomb. In later
times the dolmen became more regularly rectangular in shape, and only
its roof-block appeared above the mound. Contemporary with this later
form of dolmen were several other types of tomb. One was simply the
earlier dolmen with one side open and in front of it a sort of portico
or elementary corridor formed by two upright slabs with no roofing (cf.
the Irish type, Fig. 5, _b_). This quickly developed into the true
corridor-tomb, which had at first a small round chamber with one or two
cover-slabs, a short corridor, and a round or rectangular mound. Later
types have an oval chamber (Fig. 9) with from one to four cover-slabs or
a rectangular chamber with a long corridor and a circular mound.
Finally we reach a type where thin slabs are used in the construction,
and the mound completely covers the cap-stones: here the corridor leads
out from one of the short ends of the rectangular chamber.
The earliest of these types in point of view of development, the true
dolmen, is common both in Denmark and in South Sweden; only one example
exists in Norway. In Sweden it is never found far from the sea-coast.
[Illustration: FIG. 9. Corridor-tomb, Ottagården, Sweden.
(Montelius, _Orient und Europa_.)]
The corridor-tomb is also frequent in Denmark and Sweden, though it is
unknown in Norway. In Sweden it is, like all megalithic monuments,
confined to the south of the country. Of the early transition type with
elementary corridor there are fine examples at Herrestrup in Denmark and
Torebo in Sweden. A tomb at Sjöbol in Sweden where the corridor,
consisting of only two uprights, is covered in with two roof-slabs
instead of being left open, shows very clearly the transition to the
corridor-tomb proper, in which the entrance passage consists of at least
four uprights, two on each side. Of this there are numerous fine
examples. A tomb of this type at Broholm in Denmark has a roughly
circular chamber separated from the corridor by a kind of
threshold-stone. Another at Tyfta in Sweden is remarkable for its
curious construction, the uprights being set rather apart from one
another and the spaces between filled up with dry masonry of small
stones. Possibly there were not sufficient large blocks at hand to
construct a tomb of the required size.
The still later type consisting of a rectangular chamber with a long
corridor leading out of one of its long sides often attains to very
imposing dimensions. In Westgothland, a province of Sweden, there are
fine examples with walls of limestone and often roofs of granite visible
above the surface of the mound. The largest of these tombs is that of
Karleby near Falköping. In another at Axevalla Heath were found nineteen
bodies seated round the wall of the chamber, each in a separate small
cist of stone slabs. The position of the bodies in the Scandinavian
graves is rather variable, both the outstretched and the contracted
posture being used. It is usual to find many bodies in the same tomb,
often as many as twenty or thirty: in that of Borreby on the island of
Seeland were found seventy skeletons, all of children of from two to
eighteen years of age.
In Denmark these rectangular tombs occasionally have one or more small
round niches. In 1837 a large tomb was excavated at Lundhöj on Jütland,
which had a circular niche opposite to the entrance. The niche had a
threshold-stone, and the two uprights of the main chamber which lay on
either side of this had been crudely engraved with designs, among which
were a man, an animal, and a circle with a pair of diameters marked.
Little was found in the chamber, and only some bones and a pot in the
niche.
In Denmark often occur mounds which contain two or more tombs, usually
of the same form, each with its separate entrance passage. At the
entrance of the chamber there is sometimes a well-worked framework into
which fitted a door of stone or wood.
The late type in which the corridor leads out of one of the narrow ends
of the chamber is represented in both Sweden and Denmark. From this may
be derived the rather unusual types in which the corridor has become
indistinguishable from the chamber or forms a sort of antechamber to it.
An example of the former type at Knyttkärr in Sweden is wider at one end
than at the other, and has an outer coating of stone slabs. It resembles
very closely the wedge-shaped tombs of Munster (cf. Fig. 7):
In Germany megalithic monuments are not infrequent, but they are
practically confined to the northern part of the country. They extend as
far east as Königsberg and as far west as the borders of Holland. They
are very frequent in Holstein, Mecklenburg, and Hanover. There are even
examples in Prussian Saxony, but in South Germany they cease entirely.
Keller in one edition of his _Lake Dwellings_ figures two supposed
dolmens north of Lake Pfäffikon in Switzerland, but we have no details
with regard to them.
The true dolmen is extremely rare in Germany, and only occurs in small
groups in particular localities. The corridor-tomb with a distinct
chamber is also very exceptional, especially east of the Elbe. The most
usual type of megalithic tomb is that known as the _Hünenbett_ or
_Riesenbett_. The latter name means Giants' Bed, and it seems probable
that the former should be similarly translated, despite the suggested
connection with the Huns, for a word _Hünen_ has been in use in North
Germany for several centuries with the meaning of giants. A _Hünenbett_
consists of a rectangular (rarely oval or round) hill of earth covering
a megalithic tomb. This is a simple elongated rectangle in shape, made
of upright blocks and roofed with two or more cover-slabs. The great
_Hünenbett_ or Grewismühlen in Mecklenburg has a mound measuring 150
feet by 36 with a height of 5 feet. On the edge of the mound are
arranged forty-eight tall upright blocks of stone.
The _Hünenbetter_ of the Altmark are among the best known and explored.
Here the corridors are usually about 20 feet long, though in rare cases
they reach a length of 40 feet. Each is filled with clean sand up to
two-thirds of its height, and on this lie the bodies and their funeral
deposit. The bodies must have been laid flat, though not necessarily in
an extended position, as there was not room above the sand for them to
have been seated upright. Various implements of flint have been found in
the tombs together with stone hammers and vases of pottery. There is no
certain instance of the finding of metal.
A book printed by John Picardt at Amsterdam in 1660 contains quaint
pictures of giants and dwarfs engaged in the building of a megalithic
monument which is clearly a _Hünenbett_. According to tradition the
giants, after employing the labour of the dwarfs, proceeded to devour
them. _Hünenbetter_ similar to those shown in Picardt's illustrations
are still to be seen in Holland, but only in the north, where over fifty
are known. They are of elongated rectangular form, built of upright
blocks, and roofed with from two to ten cover-slabs. They all widen
slightly towards the west end. The most perfect example still remaining
is that of Tinaarloo, and the largest is that of Borger, which contains
forty-five blocks, of which ten are cap-stones. Several _Hünenbetter_
have been excavated. In them are found pottery vases, flint celts, axes
and hammers of grey granite, basalt, and jade.
Belgium possesses several true dolmens, of which the best known is that
called La Pierre du Diable on the right bank of the Meuse. Near Lüttich
are two simple corridor-tombs, each with a round hole in one of the
end-slabs and a small portico outside it.
CHAPTER V
FRANCE, SPAIN, AND PORTUGAL
France contains large numbers of megalithic monuments. Of dolmens and
corridor-tombs no less than 4458 have been recorded. In the east and
south-east they are rare, but they abound over a wide strip running from
the Breton coasts of the English Channel to the Mediterranean shores of
Hérault and Card. In 1901 Mortillef counted 6192 menhirs, including
those which formed parts of _alignements_ and cromlechs. Several of
these attain to a great size. That to Locmariaquer (Morbihan), now
unfortunately fallen and broken, measured over 60 feet in height, being
thus not much shorter than the Egyptian obelisk which stands in the
Place de la Concorde in Paris.
Passing now to combinations of menhirs in groups, we must first mention
the remarkable _alignements_ of Brittany, of which the most famous are
those of Carnac. They run east and west over a distance of 3300 yards,
but the line is broken at two points in such a way that the whole forms
three groups. The most westerly, that of Ménec, consists of eleven lines
of menhirs and a cromlech, the total number of stones standing being
1169, the tallest of which is 13 feet in height. The central group, that
of Kermario, consists of 982 stones arranged in ten straight lines,
while the most easterly, that of Kerlescan, is formed by 579 menhirs, 39
of which form a rectangular enclosure.
There are other _alignements_ in Brittany, of which the most important
is that of Erdeven, comprising 1129 stones arranged in ten lines.
Outside Brittany _alignements_ are unusual, but a fine example, now
ruined, is said to have existed at Saint Pantaléon north of Autun. In
the fields around it are found large quantities of polished stone axes
with knives, scrapers, and arrow-heads of flint.
We have already noticed the cromlechs which form part of the
_alignements_ of Brittany. There are other examples in France. At
Er-Lanic are two circles touching one another, the lower of which is
covered by the sea even at low tide. Excavations carried out within the
circles brought to light rough pottery and axes of polished stone. Two
fine circles at Can de Ceyrac (Gard) have diameters of about 100 yards,
and are formed of stones about 3 feet high. Each has a short entrance
avenue which narrows as it approaches the circle, and in the centre of
each rises a trilithon of rough stones.
Of the definitely sepulchral monuments the dolmen is common in all
parts of the French megalithic area. It will suffice to mention the
magnificent example known as the Table des Marchands at Locmariaquer.
Perhaps the most typical structure in France is the corridor-tomb in
which the chamber is indistinguishable from the passage, and the whole
forms a long rectangular area. This is the _allée couverte_ in the
narrower sense. In the department of Oise occurs a special type of this
in which one of the end-slabs has a hole pierced in its centre and is
preceded by a small portico consisting of two uprights supporting a
roof-slab (Fig 10). A remarkable example in Brittany known as Les
Pierres Plates turns at a sharp angle in the middle, and is thus
elbow-shaped.
[Illustration: FIG. 10. _Allée couverte_, called La Pierre aux Fées,
Oise, France. (_Compte rendu du Congrès Préhistorique
de France_.)]
In the north of France the _allée_ is often merely cut out in the
surface of the ground and has no roof at all. It is sometimes paved
with slabs and divided into two partitions by an upright with a hole in
its centre. Tombs of this kind often contain from forty to eighty
skeletons, some of which are in the contracted position. The skulls are
in some cases trepanned, i.e. small round pieces of the bone have been
cut out of them; such pieces are sometimes found separate in the graves.
No objects of metal occur in these North French tombs.
There are many fine examples in Brittany of the corridor-tomb with
distinct chamber. The best known lies on the island of Gavr'inis
(Morbihan). It is covered by a tumulus nearly 200 feet in diameter. The
circular chamber, 6 feet in height, is roofed by a huge block measuring
13 feet by 10. The corridor which leads out to the edge of the mound is
40 feet in length. Twenty-two of the upright blocks used in this tomb
are almost entirely covered with engraved designs. These are massed
together with very little order, the main object having been apparently
to cover the whole surface of the stone with ornament. The designs
consist of spirals, concentric circles and semicircles, chevrons, rows
of strokes, and triangles, and bear a considerable resemblance to those
of Lough Crew and New Grange in Ireland.
Another tomb in the same district, that of Mané-er-Hroeck, was intact
when discovered in 1863. It contained within its chamber a hoard of 101
axes of fibrolite and jadeite, 50 pebbles of a kind of turquoise known
as _callaïs_, pieces of pottery, flints, and a peculiarly fine celt of
jadeite together with a flat ring-shaped club-head of the same stone.
The tomb was concealed by a huge oval mound more than 100 yards in
length. The famous Mont S. Michel is an artificial mound containing a
central megalithic chamber and several smaller cists, some of which held
cremated bodies.
[Illustration: FIG. 11. Chambered mound at Fontenay-le-Marmion,
Normandy. (After Montelius, _Orient und Europa_.)]
A very remarkable mound in Calvados (Fig. 11) was found to contain no
less than twelve circular corbelled chambers, each with a separate
entrance passage. The megalithic tombs of Brittany all belong to the
late neolithic period, and contain tools and arrow-heads of flint, small
ornaments of gold, _callaïs_, and pottery which includes among its forms
the bell-shaped cup.
In Central and South France the _allées couvertes_ are mostly of a
semi-subterranean type, i.e. they are cut in the ground and merely
roofed with slabs of stone. The most famous is that of the Grotte des
Fées near Arles (Fig. 12), in which a passage (_a_) with a staircase at
one end and two niches (_b b_) in its sides leads into a narrow
rectangular chamber (_c_). The total length is nearly 80 feet. Another
tomb of the same type, La Grotte du Castellet, contained over a hundred
skeletons, together with thirty-three flint arrow or spear-heads, one of
which was stuck fast in a human vertebra, a bell-shaped cup, axes of
polished stone, beads and pendants of various materials, 114 pieces of
_callaïs_, and a small plaque of gold.
On the plateau of Ger near the town of Dax are large numbers of mounds,
some of which contain cremated bodies in urns and others megalithic
tombs. Bertrand saw in this a cemetery of two different peoples living
side by side. But it has since been shown that the cremation mounds
belong to a much later period than those which contain megalithic
graves. In these last the skeletons were found seated around the walls
of the chamber accompanied by objects of flint and other stone, beads of
_callaïs_, and small gold ornaments.
[Illustration: FIG. 12. Plan and section of La Grotte des Fées, Arles,
France (_Matériaux pour l'histoire de l'homme_, 1873).]
[Illustration: FIG. 13. The so-called dolmen-deity, from the tombs of
the Petit Morin. (After de Baye.)]
France has also its rock-hewn tombs, for in the valley of the
Petit-Morin is a series of such graves. A trench leads down to the
entrance, which is closed by a slab. The chamber itself is completely
underground. In the shallower tombs were either two rows of bodies with
a passage between or separate layers parted by slabs or strata of sand.
In the deeper were seldom more than eight bodies, in the extended or
contracted position, with tools and weapons of flint, pots, and beads
of amber and of _callaïs_. On the walls were rough sculptures of human
figures (Fig. 13), to which we shall have to return later.
The Channel Islands possess megalithic monuments not unlike those of
Brittany. They are corridor-tombs covered with a mound and often
surrounded by a circle of stones. Within the chamber, which is usually
round, lies, under a layer of shells, a mass of mingled human and animal
bones. The bodies had been buried in the sitting position, and with them
lay objects of stone and bone, but none of metal.
The Spanish Peninsula abounds in megalithic monuments. With the
exception of a few menhirs, whose purpose is uncertain, all are
sepulchral. Dolmens and corridor-tombs are numerous in many parts,
especially in the north-east provinces, in Galicia, in Andalusia, and,
above all, in Portugal. There is a fine dolmen in the Vall Gorguina in
North-East Spain. The cover-slab, measuring 10 feet by 8, is supported
by seven rough uprights with considerable spaces between them. In the
same region is a ruined dolmen surrounded by a circle nearly 90 feet in
circumference, consisting of seven large stones, some of which appear to
be partly worked. Circles are also found round dolmens in Andalusia.
Portugal abounds in fine dolmens both of the round and rectangular
types. At Fonte Coberta on the Douro stands a magnificent dolmen known
locally as the Moors' House. In the name of the field, Fonte Coberta,
there is doubtless an allusion to the belief that the dolmens conceal
springs of water, a belief also held in parts of Ireland.
At Eguilaz in the Basque provinces is a fine corridor-tomb, in which a
passage 20 feet long, roofed with flat slabs, leads to a rectangular
chamber 13 feet by 15 with an immense cover-slab nearly 20 feet in
length: the whole was covered with a mound of earth. The chamber
contained human bones and "lanceheads of stone and bronze." A famous
tomb of a similar type exists at Marcella in Algarve. The chamber is a
fine circle of upright slabs. It is paved with stones, and part of its
area is divided into two or perhaps three rectangular compartments. A
couple of orthostatic slabs form a sort of neck joining the circle to
the passage, which narrows as it leads away from the circle, and was
probably divided into two sections by a doorway whose side-posts still
remain.
In South-East Spain the brothers Siret have found corridor-tombs in
which the chamber is cut in the rock surface and roofed with slabs; the
entrance passage becomes a slope or a staircase. Here we have a parallel
to the Giants' Graves of Sardinia, which are built usually of stone
blocks on the surface, but occasionally are cut in the solid rock.
Other tombs in the same district show the common megalithic construction
consisting of a base course of upright slabs surmounted by several
courses of horizontal masonry (Fig. 14). The chamber is usually round,
and may have two or more niches in its circumference. It is roofed by
the successive overlapping or corbelling of the upper courses. The vault
thus formed is further supported by a pillar of wood or stone set in
the centre of the chamber. On the walls of some of the chambers there
are traces of rough painting in red. The whole tomb is covered with a
circular mound. In the best known example at Los Millares there are
remains of a semicircular façade in front of the entrance, as in many
other megalithic monuments.
[Illustration: FIG. 14. Corridor-tomb at Los Millares, Spain.
(After Siret.)]
The finest, however, of all the Spanish monuments is the corridor-tomb
of Antequera in Andalusia. It consists of a short passage leading into a
long rectangular chamber roofed with four slabs. Within it on its axial
line are three stone pillars placed directly under the three
meeting-points of the four slabs, but quite unnecessary for their
support. The whole tomb is covered with a low mound of earth. In the
great upright slab which forms the inner end of the chamber is a
circular hole rather above the centre.
It is not the plan of this tomb, but the size, that compels the
admiration of the beholder. He stands, as it were, within a vast cave
lighted only from its narrow end, the roof far above his head. The rough
surface of the blocks lends colour to the feeling that this is the work
of Nature and not of man. Here, even if not in Stonehenge, he will pause
to marvel at the patient energy of the men of old who put together such
colossal masses of stone.
Among the corridor-tombs of Spain must be mentioned a wedge-shaped type
which bears a close resemblance to those of Munster in Ireland (cf.
Fig. 7). In Alemtejo, south of Cape de Sines, are several of these,
usually about 6 feet in length, with a slight portico at one end.
A further point of similarity with the Irish monuments is seen in the
corridor-tombs of Monte Abrahaõ in Portugal, where the chamber walls
seem to have been reinforced by an outer lining of slabs. Remains of
eighty human bodies were found in this tomb, together with objects of
stone and bone, including a small conical button similar to that of
Carrowmore in Ireland.
The Spanish Peninsula also possesses rock-hewn tombs. At Palmella, near
Lisbon, is a circular example about 12 feet in diameter preceded by a
bell-shaped passage which slopes slightly downwards. Another circular
chamber in the same group has a much longer passage, which bulges out
into two small rounded antechambers. These tombs have been excavated and
yielded some pottery vases, together with objects of copper and beads of
a peculiar precious stone called _callaïs_. All the finds made in the
megalithic remains of Spain and Portugal point to the period of
transition from the age of stone to that of metal.
The Balearic Islands contain remarkable megalithic monuments. Those
known as the _talayots_ are towers having a circular or rarely a square
base and sloping slightly inwards as they rise. The largest is 50 feet
in diameter. The stones, which are rather large and occasionally
trimmed, are laid flat, not on edge. A doorway just large enough to be
entered with comfort leads through the thickness of the wall into a
round chamber roofed by corbelling, with the assistance sometimes of one
or more pillars. From analogy with the _nuraghi_ of Sardinia, which they
resemble rather closely, it seems probable that the _talayots_ are
fortified dwellings, perhaps only used in time of danger (Fig. 15).
[Illustration: Fig. 15. Section and plan of the Talayot of Sa Aquila,
Majorca. (After Cartailhac.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 16. Nau d'Es Tudons, plan and section.
(After Cartailhac.)]
The _naus_ or _navetas_ are so named from their resemblance to ships.
The construction is similar to that of the _talayots_. The outer wall
has a considerable batter. The famous Nau d'Es Tudons is about 36 feet
in length. The façade is slightly concave. A low door (_a_) gives access
through a narrow slab-roofed passage (_b_) to a long rectangular chamber
(_c_), the method of whose roofing is uncertain. All the _naus_ are
built with their façades to the south or south-east, with the exception
of that of Benigaus Nou, the inner end of which is cut in the rock,
while the outer part is built up of blocks as usual. The abnormal
orientation was here clearly determined by the desire to make use of the
face of rock in the construction. The _naus_ seem to have been tombs, as
human remains have been found in them.
Rock-tombs also occur in the islands. The most remarkable are those of
S. Vincent in Majorca. One of these has a kind of open antechamber cut
in the rock, and is exactly similar in plan to the Grotte des Fées in
France (cf. Fig. 12).
Prehistoric villages surrounded by great stone walls can still be traced
in the Balearic Isles. The houses were of two types, built either above
ground or below. The first are square or rectangular with rounded
corners, the base course occasionally consisting of orthostatic slabs.
The subterranean dwellings are faced with stone and roofed with flat
slabs supported by columns. In each village was one building of a
different type. It stood above ground and was semicircular in plan. In
its centre stood a horizontal slab laid across the top of an upright,
forming a T-shaped structure which helped to support the roof-slabs, but
which may also have had some religious significance. The stones which
composed it were always carefully worked, and the lower was let into a
socket on the under side of the upper.
CHAPTER VI
ITALY AND ITS ISLANDS
Italy cannot be called a country of megalithic monuments. In the centre
and north they do not occur, the supposed examples mentioned by Dennis
in his _Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_ having been proved
non-existent by the Italian Ministry of Education. It is only in the
extreme south-west that megalithic structures appear. They are dolmens
of ordinary type, except that in some cases the walls are formed not of
upright slabs, but of stones roughly superposed one upon another. On the
farm of the Grassi, near Lecce, are what appear to be two small dolmens
at a distance of only 4 feet apart; they are perhaps parts of a single
corridor-tomb. In the neighbourhood of Tarentum there is a dolmen-tomb
approached by a short passage, and at Bisceglie, near Ruvo, there is an
even finer example, the discovery of which is one of the most important
events which have occurred in Italian prehistoric archæology during the
last few years. The tomb is a simple rectangular corridor 36 feet in
length, lying east and west. Only one cover-slab, that at the west end,
remains, and the exact disposition of the rest of the tomb is
uncertain. In one of the side uprights which supports this slab is a
circular hole, which, however, seems to be the work of Nature, though
its presence may have led to the choice of the stone. The tomb was
carefully excavated, and the remains of several skeletons were found,
one of which lay in the contracted position on the right side. Three of
the skulls were observed by an expert to be dolichocephalic, but their
fragile condition prevented the taking of actual measurements. Burnt
bones of animals, fragments of pottery, a terra-cotta bead, and a stone
pendant were also found, together with flint knives and a fragment of
obsidian.
These discoveries show that the heel of Italy fell under the influence
which caused the spread of the megalithic monuments, whatever that
influence may have been. The same influence may also have been
responsible for the bronze age rock-hewn tombs of Matera in the
Basilicata, each of which is surrounded by a circle of fairly large
stones.
Geographical considerations would lead one to suppose that the same
conditions existed in Sicily, and it is possible that this was the case.
Yet it is an affirmation which must be made with great reserve.
Megalithic monuments in the ordinary sense of the term are unknown in
Sicily. There are, however, four tombs in the south-east of the island
which show some affinity to megalithic work. Two of these were found by
Orsi at Monteracello. They were rectangular chambers built of squared
slabs of limestone set on edge. At one end of the finer of the two was a
small opening or window cut in the upright slab. This same grave
contained a skeleton lying on the right side with the legs slightly
contracted. These two tombs can hardly be described as dolmens; they
seem to have had no cover-slabs, and the blocks, which were small, were
let into the earth, scarcely appearing above the surface. Taken by
themselves the Monteracello tombs would hardly prove the presence of the
megalithic civilization in Sicily. However, in the valley called Cava
Lazzaro there is a rock-hewn tomb where the vertical face of the rock in
which the tomb is cut has been shaped into a curved façade, a very usual
feature of megalithic architecture. This is ornamented on each side of
the entrance of the tomb with four pilasters cut in relief in the solid
rock, each pair being connected by a semicircular arch also in relief.
On the pilasters is incised a pattern of circles and V-shaped signs. A
somewhat similar arrangement of pilasters is seen in two rock-tombs at
Cava Lavinaro in the same district. This work forcibly recalls the work
of the megalithic builders in the hypogeum of Halsaflieni in Malta (see
Chap. VII), and on the façades of the Giants' Tombs in Sardinia (see
below). It affords, at any rate, a presumption that in all three
islands we have to deal with the same civilization if not the same
people.
Such a presumption is not weakened by the fact that in Sicily the usual
form of tomb was the rock-hewn sepulchre, which, as will be seen later,
is very often a concomitant of the megalithic monument, and in many
cases is proved to be the work of the same people. In the early
neolithic period in Sicily, called by Orsi the Sicanian Period,
rock-hewn tombs seem not to have been used. It is only at the beginning
of the metal age that they begin to appear. In this period, the
so-called First Siculan, the tomb-chamber was almost always circular or
elliptical, entered by a small door or window in the face of the rock.
The dead were often seated round the wall of the chamber, evidently
engaged in a funerary feast, as is clear from the great vase set in
their midst with small cups for ladling out the liquid. A single tomb
often contained many bodies, especially in cases where the banquet
arrangement was not observed; one chamber held more than a hundred
skeletons, and it has been suggested that the bodies were only laid in
the tomb after the flesh had been removed from the bones, either
artificially or as the result of a temporary burial elsewhere. Such a
custom is not unknown in other parts of the megalithic area. With these
bodies were found large quantities of painted pottery, a few implements
of copper and many of flint. Among the ornaments which the dead
carried--for they seem to have been buried in complete costume--were
several axe-shaped pendants of polished stone, precisely similar to
those of Sardinia, Malta, and France. The most important cemeteries of
this period are those of Castelluccio, Melilli, and Monteracello. Near
this last site was also found a round hut based on a course of
orthostatic slabs of typically megalithic appearance.
In the full bronze age, called the Second Siculan Period, burial in
rock-tombs still remained the rule. The tomb-form had developed
considerably. The circular type was still usual, though beside it a
rectangular form was fast coming into favour. The main chamber often had
side-niches, and was usually preceded by a corridor which sometimes
passed through an antechamber. Occasionally we find an elaborate
open-air court outside the façade of the tomb, built very much after the
megalithic style. Large vertical surfaces of rock were carefully sought
after for tombs, and the almost inaccessible cliffs of Pantalica and
Cassibile are literally honeycombed with them. Where such surfaces of
rock were unobtainable a vertical shaft was sunk in the level rock and a
chamber was opened off the bottom of it. The tradition of the banquet of
the dead is still kept up, but the number of the skeletons in each tomb
steadily decreases. The sitting posture is still frequent, though
occasionally the body lies flat on one side with the legs slightly
contracted. Flint is now rare, but objects of bronze are plentiful. The
local painted pottery has almost entirely given place to simpler yet
better wares with occasional Mycenean importations.
It is impossible to decide whether this Sicilian civilization ought to
be included under the term megalithic. If, as seems probable, the idea
of megalithic building was brought to Europe by the immigration of a new
race it is possible that a branch of this race entered Sicily. In that
case I should prefer to think that they came not at the beginning of the
First Siculan Period as we know it, but rather earlier. Certain vases
found with neolithic burials in a cave at Villafrati and elsewhere in
Sicily resemble the pottery usually found in megalithic tombs; one of
them is in fact a bell-shaped cup, a form typical of megalithic pottery.
It is thus possible that an immigration of megalithic people into Sicily
took place during the stone age, definitely later than the period of the
earliest neolithic remains on the island, but earlier than that of such
sites as the Castelluccio cemetery. This, however, is and will perhaps
remain a mere conjecture, though it is quite possible that there are in
the interior of Sicily dolmens which have not yet come to the notice of
the archæologist; in this connection it is worth while to remember that
up to five years ago the existence of dolmens in both Sardinia and Malta
passed unnoticed.
If the inclusion of Sicily in the megalithic area is doubtful there is
fortunately no question about the island of Sardinia. Here we have one
of the chief strongholds of the megalithic civilization, where the
architecture displays its greatest variety and flexibility. The simplest
manifestation of megalithic building, the dolmen, was up till lately
thought to be absent from Sardinia, but the researches of the last few
years have brought to light several examples, of which the best known
are those of Birori, where the chamber is approximately circular in
plan.
The monuments, however, for which Sardinia is most famous are the
_nuraghi._ A _nuraghe_ is a tower-like structure of truncated conical
form, built of large stones laid in comparatively regular courses (Pl.
II, Fig. 2). The stones are often artificially squared, and set with a
clay mortar. The plan and arrangement of a simple _nuraghe_ are usually
as follows (Fig. 17): The diameter of the building is generally under 30
feet. A door of barely comfortable height even for an average man and
surmounted by a single lintel-block gives access to a narrow passage cut
through the thickness of the wall. In this passage are, to the right, a
small niche (_c_) just large enough to hold a man, and, on the left,
a winding staircase in the wall (_d_) leading to an upper storey. The
passage itself leads into the chamber (_a_), which is circular, often
with two or three side-niches (_b b_), and roofed by corbelling, i.e. by
making each of the upper courses of stones in its wall project inwards
over the last. The upper chamber, which is rarely preserved, is similar
in form to the lower.
[Illustration: Plate II Fig. 1. MNAIDRA, DOORWAY OF ROOM H]
[Illustration: Plate II Fig. 2. THE NURAGHE OF MADRONE IN SARDINIA
To face p. 82]
[Illustration: Fig. 17. Elevation, section and plan of a _nuraghe_.
(Pinza, _Monumenti Antichi_.)]
Considerable speculation has been indulged in concerning the purpose of
the _nuraghi_. For many years they were regarded as tombs, a view which
was first combated by Nissardi at the International Congress in Rome in
1903. Further exploration since that time has placed it beyond all doubt
that the _nuraghi_ were fortified dwellings. The form of the building
itself is almost conclusive. The lowness of the door would at once put
an enemy at a disadvantage in attempting to enter; it is significant
that in the _nuraghe_ of Su Cadalanu, where the doorway was over 6 feet
in height, its breadth was so much reduced that it was necessary to
enter sideways. Arrangements were made for the closing of the entrance
from inside by a heavy slab of stone, often fitted into grooves. The
niche on the right of the passage clearly served to hold a man, who
would command the passage itself and the staircase to the upper floor;
he would, moreover, be able to attack the undefended flank of an enemy
entering with his shield on his left arm. To the same effort at
impregnability we may safely ascribe the fact that the staircase leading
to the upper room did not begin on the floor-level of the passage, but
was reached through a hole high up in the wall. Many of the _nuraghi_
are surrounded by elaborate fortifications consisting of walls, towers,
and bastions, sometimes built at the same time as the dwelling itself,
sometimes added later. Those of Aiga, Losa, and s'Aspru are among the
most famous of this type. All the _nuraghi_ stand in commanding
situations overlooking large tracts of country, and the more important a
position is from the strategical point of view the stronger will be the
_nuraghe_ which defends it. All are situated close to streams and
springs of good water, and some, as for instance that of Abbameiga, are
actually built over a natural spring. At Nossiu is a building which can
only be described as a fortress. It consists of a rhomboidal enclosure
with _nuraghe_-like towers at its corners and four narrow gateways in
its walls. It is surrounded by the ruins of a village of stone huts.
There cannot be the least doubt that in time of danger the inhabitants
drove their cattle into the fortified enclosure, entered it themselves,
and then closed the gates.
Each _nuraghe_ formed the centre of a group of stone huts. Mackenzie has
described such a village at Serucci, where the circular plan of the
huts was still visible. The walls in one case stood high enough to
show, from the corbelling of their upper courses, that the huts were
roofed in the same fashion as the _nuraghi_ themselves. Another village,
that which surrounds the _nuraghe_ of Su Chiai, was protected by a wall
of huge stones.
It is thus clear that the _nuraghi_ were the fortified centres of the
various villages of Sardinia. Probably each formed the residence of the
local chieftain; that they were actually inhabited is clear from the
remains of everyday life found in them, and from the polish which
continual use has set on the side-walls of some of the staircases. In
general appearance and design the _nuraghi_ recall the modern _truddhi_,
hundreds of which dot the surface of Apulia and help to beguile the
tedium of the railway journey from Brindisi to Foggia. The _truddhi_,
however, are built in steps or terraces and have no upper chamber.
Who were the foes against whom such elaborate preparations for defence
were made? Two alternatives are possible. Either Sardinia was a
continual prey to some piratical Mediterranean people, or she was
divided against herself through the rivalry of the local chieftains.
The second explanation is perhaps the more probable. Mackenzie seems to
adopt it, and fancies that in the growth of the largest _nuraghi_ we may
trace the rise to power of some of these local dynasts at the expense of
their neighbours. He suggests that the existence of the fortified
enclosure of Nossiu, where there is no sign of a true _nuraghe_, may
mean that there were certain communities which succeeded in maintaining
their independence in the face of these powerful rulers. But here, as he
himself is the first to admit, we are in the realm of pure conjecture.
[Illustration: Fig. 18. Giant's Tomb at Muraguada, Sardinia. (Mackenzie,
_Papers of the British School of Rome_, V.)]
It is now established that in the Giants' Tombs of Sardinia we are to
see the graves of the inhabitants of the _nuraghe_ villages. Every
Giant's Tomb lies close to such a village, and almost every village has
its Giants' Tombs, one or more in number according to its size. A
Giant's Tomb consists of a long rectangular chamber of upright slabs
roofed by corbelled masonry (Fig. 18). The slab which closes one end of
the tomb is of great size, and consists of a lower rectangular half with
a small hole at the base and an upper part shaped like a rounded gable.
There is a raised border to the whole slab, and a similar band in relief
marks out the two halves. This front slab forms the centre-piece in a
curved façade of upright slabs. The chamber is covered with a coating of
ashlar masonry, which is shaped into an apsidal form at the end opposite
to the façade. Occasionally more than 50 feet in length, the Giants'
Tombs served as graves for whole families, or even for whole villages.
Mackenzie has shown that the form is derived from the simple dolmen, and
has pointed out several of the intermediate stages.
The inhabitants of Sardinia in the megalithic period also buried their
dead in rock-hewn sepulchres, of which there are numerous examples at
Anghelu Ruju. The contents of these graves make it clear that they are
the work of the same people as the Giants' Graves. Were further proof
needed it could be afforded by a grave at Molafà, where a Giant's Grave
with its façade and gabled slab has been faithfully imitated in the
solid rock. There is a similar tomb at St. George. Two natural caves in
Cape Sant' Elia on the south of the island contain burials of this same
period.
The neighbouring island of Corsica also contains important megalithic
remains. They consist of thirteen dolmens, forty-one menhirs, two
_alignements_, and a cromlech. They fall geographically into two groups,
one in the extreme north and the other in the extreme south of the
island.
The stones used are chiefly granite and gneiss. The dolmens, which are
of carefully chosen flat blocks showing no trace of work, are all
rectangular in plan, and usually consist of four side-walls and a
cover-slab. The finest of all, however, the dolmen of Fontanaccia, has
seven blocks supporting the cover, one at each short end, three in one
of the long sides, and two in the other. None of the dolmens are covered
by mounds.
Of the _alignements_, that of Caouria seems to consist, in part at
least, of two parallel lines of menhirs, the rest of the plan being
uncertain. There are still thirty-two blocks, of which six have fallen.
The other _alignement_, that of Rinaiou, consists of seven menhirs set
in a straight line. The cromlech is circular and stands on Cape Corse.
On the small island of Pianosa, near Elba, are several rock-hewn tombs
of the æneolithic period which ought perhaps to be classed with the
megalithic monuments of Sardinia and Corsica.
CHAPTER VII
AFRICA, MALTA, AND THE SMALLER
MEDITERRANEAN ISLANDS
North Africa is a great stronghold of the megalithic civilization,
indeed it is thought by some that it is the area in which megalithic
building originated. Morocco, Tunis, Algeria, and Tripoli all abound in
dolmens and other monuments. Even in the Nile Valley they occur, for
what looks like a dolmen surrounded by a circle was discovered by de
Morgan in the desert near Edfu, and Wilson and Felkin describe a number
of simple dolmens which exist near Ladò in the Sudan. Tripoli remains as
yet comparatively unexplored. The traveller Barth speaks of stone
circles near Mourzouk and near the town of Tripoli. The great trilithons
(_senams_) with holes pierced in their uprights and 'altar tables' at
their base, which Barth, followed by Cooper in his _Hill of the Graces_,
described as megalithic monuments, have been shown to be nothing more
than olive-presses, the 'altar tables' being the slabs over which the
oil ran off as it descended. True dolmens do, however, occur in Tripoli,
and Cooper figures a fine monument at Messa in the Cyrenaica, which
appears to consist of a single straight line of tall uprights with a
continuous entablature of blocks similar to that of the outer circle at
Stonehenge.
Algeria has been far more completely explored, and possesses a
remarkable number of megalithic monuments. Many of the finest are
situated near the town of Constantine. Thus at Bou Nouara there is a
hill about a mile in length which is a regular necropolis of
dolmen-tombs. Each grave consists of a dolmen within a circle of stones.
The blocks are all natural and completely unworked. The circle consists
of a wall of stone blocks so built as to neutralize the slope of the
hill and to form a level platform for the dolmen. Thus on the lower side
there are three courses of carefully laid stones rising to about five
feet, while on the upper side there is only one course. The diameter of
the circles varies from 22 to 33 feet. In the centre of the circle lies
the dolmen with its single long cover-slab. This usually rests on two
entire side-slabs, the ends being filled up either with entire slabs or
with masonry of small stones. In rare cases the side-slabs are replaced
by masonry walls. The average size of the cover-slab is 6-1/2 by 5 feet.
The dolmen itself is, of course, built directly on to the platform, and
the space between it and the circle is filled up with rough stones. The
orientation of the dolmens varied considerably, but the cover-slab was
never placed in such a way that its length ran up the hill-slope,
probably because in moving the slab into place this would have been an
awkward position.
Another equally fine site is that of Bou Merzoug, near Oulad Rahmoun,
about an hour's railway journey from Constantine. The place is naturally
adapted for a settlement as there is a spring of water there. This
spring was later utilized by the Romans to provide water for the city of
Cirta. The dolmen-graves lie in great numbers on the hill at the foot of
which the spring rises, and extend down into the valley. Each dolmen
lies in the centre of a stone circle. This last is in some cases formed
by very large slabs set on edge, but more often by two or three courses
of rough oblong blocks. Many of the graves are badly damaged. One of the
finest had an outer circle about 27 feet in diameter, and an inner
circle 14 feet in diameter. Between these two a third circle, much more
irregular and of small stones, could just be distinguished. But in most
cases it was impossible to make out clearly more than the one outer
circle and the dolmen within it. The dolmen itself consisted of a large
slab resting on walls formed of several large blocks, the spaces between
which were filled up with smaller stones. None of the stones used were
worked. The dolmens were not oriented according to any fixed system. M.
Féraud states that the separate graves were united together by open
corridors formed by double or triple rows of large stones, but no traces
of such a system could be found by the later visitors to the site,
Messrs. MacIver and Wilkin.
Fortunately we have some record of what these graves contained, for
thirteen were opened by Mr. Christy and M. Féraud. One contained a human
skeleton in good condition, buried in the contracted position with the
knees to chin and arms crossed. With this were two whole vases,
fragments of others, and pieces of cedar wood. At the feet of the
skeleton were two human heads, and as the graves would not have
accommodated more than one whole body M. Féraud suggests that these
belong to decapitated victims. Another grave contained, in addition to
human bones, those of a horse, together with three objects of copper,
viz. a ring, an earring, and a buckle. In another were found the teeth
and bones of a horse and an iron bit.
An entirely different type of monument is found near Msila, south-west
of Algiers. Here is a long low hill called the Senâm, covered with large
numbers of stone circles. These consist of large slabs of natural
limestone set up on edge and not very closely fitted. The height of the
slabs varies from 2 to 3 feet, and the diameters of the three still
perfect circles are 23-1/2, 26-3/4, and 34-1/3 feet respectively. At a
point roughly south-east there is a break in the circumference, filled
by a rectangular niche (Fig. 19) consisting of three large slabs, and
varying in width from 2 ft. 6 in. to 6 feet. There is a possibility that
the niches were originally roofed, but the evidence on this point is far
from conclusive. The interior of the circle is filled with blocks of
stone, apparently heaped up without any definite plan. There seems to be
no clue as to the meaning of these circles, as none have as yet been
explored. MacIver and Wilkin are probably right in classing them as
graves.
[Illustration: FIG 19. Stone circle at the Senâm, Algeria.
(After MacIver and Wilkin).]
The most famous, however, of the Algerian sites is unquestionably that
of Roknia. Here the tombs lie on the side of a steep hill. They consist
of dolmens often surrounded by stone circles from 25 to 33 feet in
diameter. The cover-slabs of the dolmens usually rest on single
uprights, and never on built walls. Several of the graves excavated
contained more than one body, one yielding as many as seven. It is
remarkable that three of the skulls showed wounds, the dead having been
apparently killed in battle. Several vases have been found and a few
pieces of bronze.
We have seen that in some of the tombs of Bou Merzoug objects of iron
were found. This makes it clear that some at least of the Algerian tombs
belong to the iron age, i.e. that they are probably later than 1000
B.C., but beyond this we cannot go. The medal of Faustina sometimes
quoted as evidence for a very late date proves nothing, as it is not
stated to have been found in a tomb. There is no evidence to show how
far back the graves go. It may be that, as MacIver and Wilkin suggest,
the parts of the cemeteries excavated chance to be the latest. At Bou
Merzoug the excavators worked chiefly among the graves on the plain and
at the bottom of the hill. The more closely crowded graves which lie on
the hill itself may well be older than these. In fact, all that may be
said of the Algerian graves is that some are of the iron age, while
others may be and probably are earlier.
In Tunis the dolmen is not uncommon, and several groups or cemeteries
have been reported. Near Ellez occurs a type of corridor-tomb in which
three dolmen-like chambers lie on either side of a central passage, and
a seventh at the end opposite to the entrance. The whole is constructed
of upright slabs of stone, and is surrounded by a circle formed in the
same way.
Morocco, too, has its dolmens, especially in the district of Kabylia,
while near Tangier there is a stone circle.
Off the north coast of Africa, and thus on the highway which leads from
Africa to Europe, lie the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Linosa. The
latter is volcanic in origin, and its surface presents no opportunity
for the building of megalithic monuments. Lampedusa, on the other hand,
consists of limestone, which lies about in great blocks on its surface.
On the slopes of the south coast there are several remains of megalithic
construction, but they are too damaged to show much of their original
form. However, on the north side of the island there are megalithic huts
in a very fair state of preservation. They are oval in form and have in
many cases a base course of orthostatic slabs.
Some miles to the north of Linosa lies the much larger volcanic island
of Pantelleria, also a possession of Italy. Here megalithic remains both
of dwellings and of tombs have been found. On the plateau of the Mursia
are the remains of rectangular huts made of rough blocks of stone. These
huts seemed to have formed a village, which was surrounded by a wall for
purposes of defence. In the huts were found implements of obsidian and
flat stones used for grinding.
[Illustration: FIG. 20. Plan of the Sese Grande, Pantelleria.
(Orsi, _Monumenti Antichi_, IX.)]
The tombs of the people who inhabited this village are, unlike the
houses, circular or elliptical in form. They are locally known as
_sesi._ The smaller are of truncated conical shape, the circular chamber
being entered by a low door and having a corbelled roof. In one of the
_sesi_ a skeleton was found buried in the contracted position. The
finest of the tombs, known as the Sese Grande, elliptical in form (Fig.
20), has a major diameter of more than 60 feet, and rises in ridges,
being domed at the top. It contains not one chamber, but twelve, each of
which has a separate entrance from the outside of the _sese._ To judge
by the remains found in the _sesi_ they belong entirely to the neolithic
period.
The island of Malta as seen to-day is an almost treeless, though not
unfertile, stretch of rock, with a harbour on the north coast which must
always make the place a necessary possession to the first sea power of
Europe. Much of its soil is of comparatively modern creation, and four
thousand years ago the island may well have had a forbidding aspect.
This is perhaps the reason why the first great inroads of neolithic man
into the Mediterranean left it quite untouched, although it lay directly
in the path of tribes immigrating into Europe from Africa. The earliest
neolithic remains of Italy, Crete, and the Ægean seem to have no
parallel in Malta, and the first inhabitants of whom we find traces in
the island were builders of megalithic monuments. Small as Malta is it
contains some of the grandest and most important structures of this kind
ever erected. The two greatest of these, the so-called "Phoenician
temples" of Hagiar Kim and Mnaidra, were constructed on opposite sides
of one of the southern valleys, each within sight of the other and of
the little rocky island of Filfla.
[Illustration: FIG. 21. Plan of the megalithic sanctuary of Mnaidra,
Malta. (After Albert Mayr's plan.)]
The temple of Mnaidra is the simpler of the two in plan (Fig. 21). It
consists of two halves, the more northerly of which was almost certainly
built later than the other. Each half consists of two elliptical
chambers set one behind the other. The south half is the better
preserved. It has a concave façade of large orthostatic slabs with
horizontal blocks set in front of them to keep them in position. In the
centre of this opens a short paved passage formed of fine upright slabs
of stone, one of which is 13 feet in height. The first elliptical
chamber (_E_) into which this passage leads us has a length of 45 feet.
Its walls (Pl. III) consist of roughly squared orthostatic slabs over 6
feet in height, above which are several courses of horizontal blocks
which carry the walls in places up to a height of nearly 14 feet. This
combination of vertical and horizontal masonry is typical of all the
Maltese temples. To the left of the entrance is a rectangular niche in
the wall containing one of the remarkable trilithons (_a_) which form so
striking a feature of Mnaidra and Hagiar Kim. It consists of a
horizontal slab of stone nearly 10 feet in length, supported at its ends
by two vertical slabs about 5 feet high. To the right of the entrance is
a window-like opening (_b_, behind the seated figure in Pl. III) in one
of the slabs of the wall, preceded by two steps and giving access to
an irregular triangular space (_F_). In the north-west angle of this
triangle is fixed a trilithon table (_c_) of the usual type, 32 inches
high; at a like height above the table is fixed another horizontal slab
which serves as a roof to the corner. The south corner of the triangle
is shut off by a vertical slab, in which is cut a window 29 inches by
17. Through this is seen a shrine (?) consisting of a box (_d_) made of
five well-cut slabs of stone, the front being open. The aperture by
which _F_ is entered was evidently intended to be closed with a slab of
stone from the inside of _F_, for it was rebated on that side, and there
are holes to be used in securing the slab. When the entrance was thus
blocked _F_ still communicated with _E_ by means of a small rectangular
window 16 inches by 12 in one of the adjacent slabs (visible in Pl.
III).
[Illustration: PLATE III TEMPLE OF MNAIDRA, MALTA. APSE OF CHIEF ROOM
To face p. 100]
Returning to the area _E_ we find in the south-west wall an elaborate
doorway (Pl. II, Fig. I, p. 82) leading to a rectangular room _H_. The
doorway consists of two tall pillars with a great lintel laid across the
top. The space between the pillars is closed by a fixed vertical slab in
which is a window-like aperture similar to that which gives access to
Room _F_. All the stones in this doorway are ornamented with pit-marks.
The rectangular room _H_ has niches in its walls to the north, south,
and west. Each niche is formed by a pair of uprights with a block laid
across the top. The west niche is occupied by a horizontal table or
slab (_e_) supported at its centre by a stone pillar 39 inches in
height, of circular section narrowing in the centre (visible through the
doorway in Pl. II, Fig. I). The southern niche contains an ordinary
trilithon table (_f_): the northern niche is damaged, but apparently
held a table like that of the western.
The area _I_ consists of only half an ellipse, the southern half being
replaced by the area _H_, which we have already described. It has a
rectangular niche to the west containing a fine trilithon with a
cover-slab nearly 10 feet long.
The whole of the southern half of the Mnaidra temple is surrounded by a
wall of huge rough blocks of stone, presenting a great contrast to the
dressed slabs of which the inner walls are formed. They are placed
alternately with their broad faces and their narrow edges outwards. The
roughness of this enclosure wall gives the structure a remarkably wild
and craggy appearance from a distance. The northern half of Mnaidra is
clearly a later addition.
There is no doubt as to the way in which the areas were roofed. In the
apse-like ends of the elliptical rooms the horizontal courses are
corbelled, i.e. each course projects slightly forward over the last.
Thus the space narrows as the walls rise, until the aperture is small
enough to be roofed by great slabs laid across. The corbelling of the
apse is just perceptible in Pl. III. Whether the roofing of the Mnaidra
temple was ever complete it is impossible to say: in any case the system
we have described could only be applied to the apsidal portions of the
areas, and their centres must either have been open to the sky or roofed
quite simply with slabs.
In the still more famous temple of Hagiar Kim we have a complicated
building, in which the original plan has been much altered and enlarged.
The main portion doubtless consisted originally of a curved façade and a
pair of elliptical areas, the inner of which has been fitted with a
second entrance to the north-west and completely remodelled at its
south-west end. Four elliptical chambers, one of which is at a much
higher level than the rest of the building, have been added. Here, too,
as at Mnaidra, we find niches containing trilithon tables. In the first
elliptical area, in which the apsidal ends are divided from the central
space by means of walls of vertical slabs, a remarkable group of objects
was found. In front of a well-cut vertical block stood what must be an
altar, cut in one piece of stone. It is square in section except for the
top, which is circular. On the four vertical edges are pilasters in
relief, and in the front between these is cut in relief what looks like
a plant growing out of a pot or box. To the left of the altar and the
vertical slab behind were an upright stone with two hanging spirals cut
on it in relief, and at its foot a horizontal slab. Both the altar and
the carved stone are covered with small pit-marks.
In the outside wall of the building, quite unconnected with the
interior, is a niche partly restored on old foundations, in which stands
a rough stone pillar 6-1/2 feet high. In front of this pillar is a
vertical slab nearly 3 feet high, narrowing towards the base, and
covered with pit-markings. This pillar can hardly be anything but a
baetyl, or sacred stone.
The temple called the Gigantia, on the island of Gozo, is no less
remarkable than the two which we have already described; in one place
its wall is preserved up to a height of over 20 feet. The plan is
similar to that of Mnaidra, though here the two halves seem to have been
built at one and the same time. Several of the blocks show a design of
spirals in relief, while on others there are the usual pit-markings.
Another bears a figure of a fish or serpent. At the foot of one of the
trilithons was found a baetyl 51 inches in height, now in the museum at
Valletta.
That these three buildings were sanctuaries of some kind seems almost
certain from their form and arrangement. We do not, however, know what
was the exact nature of the worship carried on in them, though there can
be no doubt that the stone tables supported by single pillars and the
trilithons found in the niches played an important part in the ritual.
Sir Arthur Evans in his famous article _Mycenæan Tree and Pillar Cult_
has suggested that in Malta we have a cult similar to that seen in the
Mycenæan world. This latter was an aneiconic worship developed out of
the cult of the dead; in it the deity or hero was represented by a
baetyl, i.e. a tree or pillar sometimes standing free, sometimes placed
in a 'dolmen-like' cell or shrine, in which latter case the pillar often
served to support the roof of the shrine. In Malta Sir Arthur Evans sees
signs of a baetyl-worship very similar to this. Thus at Hagiar Kim we
have a pillar still standing free in a niche, and another pillar, which,
to judge from its shape, must have stood free, was found in the
Gigantia. On the other hand, at Mnaidra we have pillars which support
slabs in a cell or shrine, and at Cordin several small pillars were
found which must originally have served a similar purpose.
There can hardly be any doubt that Sir Arthur Evans is right in seeing
in the Maltese temples signs of a baetylic worship. But is he right in
his further assertion that the cult was a cult of the dead? Albert Mayr
assumes that he is, and endeavours to show that the 'dolmen-like' cells
in the niches are not altars, but stereotyped representations of the
dolmen-tombs of the heroes worshipped. He thinks that the slabs which
cover them are too large for altar-tables, and that the niches in which
they stand are too narrow and inaccessible to have been the scene of
sacrificial rites. Neither of these arguments has much force, nor is it
easy to see how the cells are derived from dolmens. The fact is that the
word 'dolmen-like,' which has become current coin in archæological
phraseology, is a question-begging epithet. The Maltese cells are not
like dolmens at all, they are either trilithons or tables resting on a
pillar. They are always open to the front, and instead of the rough
unhewn block which should cover a dolmen they are roofed with a
well-squared slab. If the pillar which supports the slab is, like the
free-standing pillars, a baetyl, the slab is probably a mere roof to
cover and protect it; if not, the slab is almost certainly a table.
At the same time, although we may not accept the hypothesis that the
cell is derived from a dolmen, Sir Arthur Evans may still be right in
supposing the worship to have originated in a cult of the dead. But he
was almost certainly wrong, as recent excavation has shown, in supposing
that the cells were the actual burial place of the deified heroes.
A number of statuettes were found at Hagiar Kim, two of which are of
pottery and the rest of limestone. One figure represents a woman
standing, but in the rest she is seated on a rather low stool with her
feet tucked under her. There is no sign of clothing, except on one
figure which shows a long shirt and a plain bodice with very low neck.
All these statuettes are characterized by what is known as steatopygy,
that is, the over-development of the fat which lies on and behind the
hips and thighs.
Steatopygous figures have been found in many places, viz. France, Malta,
Crete, the Cyclades, Greece, Thessaly, Servia, Transylvania, Poland,
Egypt, and the Italian colony of Eritrea on the Red Sea. The French
examples are from caves of the palæolithic period; the rest mainly
belong to the neolithic and bronze ages. Various reasons have been given
for the abnormal appearance of these figures. In the first place it has
been suggested that they represent women of a steatopygous type, like
the modern Bushwomen, and that this race was in early days widely
diffused in the Mediterranean and in South Europe. Another hypothesis is
that they represent not a truly steatopygous type of women, but only an
abnormally fat type. A third suggestion is that they portray the
generative aspect of nature in the form of a pregnant goddess.
Naturally there are considerable local differences in the shapes of the
figures from the various countries we have enumerated, and it may be
that no single hypothesis will explain them all.
There are other megalithic buildings in Malta besides the three which
we have discussed, but none of them call for more than passing mention.
On the heights of Cordin or Corradino, overlooking the Grand Harbour of
Valletta, there are no less than three groups, all of which have been
lately excavated. In all three we see signs of the typical arrangement
of elliptical areas one behind another, and in the finest of the three
the curved façade and the paved court which lies before it are still
preserved.
It was for a long time believed that there were no dolmens in Malta.
Professor Tagliaferro has been able to upset this belief by discovering
two, one near Musta and the other near Siggewi. It is hardly credible
that these are the only two dolmens which ever existed in Malta. More
will no doubt yet be found, especially in the wild north-west corner of
the isle.
The megalithic builders of Malta did not confine their achievements to
structures above ground, they could also work with equal facility below.
In the village of Casal Paula, which lies about a mile from the head of
the Grand Harbour of Valletta, is a wonderful complex of subterranean
chambers known as the Hypogeum of Halsaflieni, which may justly be
considered as one of the wonders of the world.
The chambers, which seem to follow no definite plan, are excavated in
the soft limestone and arranged in two storeys connected by a staircase,
part of which still remains in place. The finest rooms are in the upper
storey. The largest is circular, and contains in its walls a series of
false doors and windows. It is in this room that the remarkable nature
of the work in the hypogeum is most apparent. On entering it one sees at
once that the intention of the original excavator was to produce in
solid rock underground a copy of a megalithic structure above ground.
Thus the walls curve slightly inwards towards the top as do those of the
apses of Mnaidra and Hagiar Kim, and the ceiling is cut to represent a
roof of great blocks laid across from wall to wall with a space left
open in the centre where the width would be too great for the length of
the stones. The treatment of the doors and windows recalls at once that
of the temples above ground. The mason was not content, when he needed a
door, to cut a rectangular opening in the rock; he must represent in
high relief the monolithic side-posts and lintel which were the great
features of the megalithic 'temples' of Malta. Nor has he failed in his
intention, for, as one moves from room to room in the hypogeum, one
certainly has the feeling of being in a building constructed of separate
blocks and not merely cut in the solid rock. No description can do
justice to the grace of the curves and the flow of the line in the
circular chamber and in the passage beyond it, and we have here the
work of an architect who felt the æsthetic effect of every line he
traced.
Behind the circular chamber and across the passage just referred to lies
a small room which, rightly or wrongly, has been called the 'Holy of
Holies,' the idea being that it formed a kind of inner sanctuary to the
chamber. It contains a rough shelf cut in the wall, and in the centre of
this a shallow circular pit. It has been suggested that this pit was
made to hold the base of the cult-object, whether it was a baetyl or an
idol. This, however, is a mere conjecture. In the passage just outside
the door of this room are two small circular pits about 6 inches in
diameter and the same distance apart. They connect with one another
below, and are closed with tightly fitting limestone plugs. In one of
them was found a cow's horn. Their purpose is unknown, but similar pairs
of pits occur elsewhere at Halsaflieni.
In two of the largest chambers in the hypogeum the roof and walls are
still decorated with designs in red paint. The patterns consist of
graceful combinations of curved lines and spirals. Many other rooms,
including the circular chamber, were originally painted with designs in
red, which have now almost wholly disappeared.
Many of the chambers are extremely small, too small for an adult even to
stand upright in them, and their entrances are merely windows, perhaps
a foot square and well above the ground.
What then was the purpose of this wonderful complex of rooms? Before
attempting to answer this question we must consider what has been found
in them. When the museum authorities first took over the hypogeum
practically all the chambers were filled to within a short distance of
their roofs with a mass of reddish soil, which proved to contain the
remains of thousands of human skeletons. In other words, Halsaflieni was
used as a burial place, though this may not have been its original
purpose. The bones lay for the most part in disorder, and so thickly
that in a space of about 4 cubic yards lay the remains of no less than
120 individuals. One skeleton, however, was found intact, lying on the
right side in the crouched position, i.e. with arms and knees bent up.
With the bones were found enormous quantities of pottery and other
objects, buried with the dead as provision for the next world. The
pottery is rough in comparison with the fine painted wares of Crete, but
it is extremely varied in its decoration. One particularly fine bowl
shows a series of animals which have been identified by Professor
Tagliaferro as the long-horned buffalo, an animal which once existed on
the northern coasts of Africa. Ornaments of all kinds were common, and
include beads, pendants, and conical buttons of stone and shell. The
most remarkable of all are a large number of model celts made of
jadeite and other hard stones. These are of the same shape as the stone
axes used by neolithic man, but they are far too small ever to have been
used, and they must therefore have been models hung round the neck as
amulets. Each is provided with a small hole for this purpose. The
popularity of the axe-amulet makes it probable that the axe had some
religious significance.
Finally Halsaflieni has yielded several steatopygous figurines. Some of
these resemble those of Hagiar Kim, but two are of rather different
type. Each of these represents a female lying on a rather low couch. In
the better preserved of the two she lies on her right side, her head on
a small uncomfortable-looking pillow. The upper part of her body is
naked, but from the waist downwards she is clad in a flounced skirt
which reaches to the ankles. The other figurine is very similar, but the
woman here is face downwards on the couch.
The bodies themselves were so damaged with damp that only ten skulls
could be saved whole. These, however, afford very valuable
anthropological evidence. They have been carefully measured by Dr.
Zammit, and they prove to belong to a long-headed (dolichocephalic) type
usual among the neolithic races of the Mediterranean.
We have still to discuss the purpose of this great complex of
underground chambers and passages. It is quite clear that its eventual
fate was to be used as a burial place for thousands of individuals, but
it is far from certain that this was the purpose for which it was built.
The existence of the central chamber, with its careful work and
laborious imitation of an open-air 'temple,' is against this
interpretation. It has therefore been suggested that the hypogeum was
meant for a burial place, and that the central chamber was the chapel or
sanctuary in which the funeral rites were performed, after which the
body was buried in one of the smaller rooms. This, however, does not
explain the presence of burials in the chapel itself, and it is far more
likely that it was only after Halsaflieni had ceased to be used for its
original purpose that it was seized upon as a convenient place for
burial.
The question of the date of the Maltese megalithic buildings is a
difficult one. It is true that no metal has been found in them, and that
we can therefore speak of them as belonging to the neolithic age. But
the neolithic age of Malta need not be parallel in date with that of
Crete for example. It is extremely probable that Malta lay outside the
main currents of civilization, and that flint continued to be used there
long after copper had been adopted by her more fortunate neighbours.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DOLMENS OF ASIA
In the south-east of Europe lie three groups of dolmens which are no
doubt in origin more closely connected with those of Asia than with
those of the rest of Europe. The first group lies in Bulgaria, where no
less than sixty dolmens have been found north of Adrianople. The second
consists of a few dolmens which still remain in the Crimea, and the
third lies in the Caucasus in two divisions, one to the south-east and
the other to the south-west of the town of Ekaterinodar. These last are
made of slabby rock, and thus have a finished appearance. A dolmen near
Tzarskaya has a small semicircular hole at the bottom of one of its
end-slabs, while another in the valley of Pehada has sides consisting of
single blocks, placed so as to slant inwards considerably, and a
circular hole in the centre of the slab which closes one of its ends.
In Asia megalithic monuments are not infrequent. We first find them in
Syria, they have been reported from Persia, and in Central and South
India they exist in large numbers. Corridor-tombs occur in Japan, but
they are late in date, and there is no evidence to show whether they
are connected with those of India or not.
Syria is comparatively rich in megalithic monuments, but it is
remarkable that almost all of them lie to the east of the Jordan. Thus
while there are hundreds of dolmens in the country of Pera and in Ammon
and Moab, very few have been found in Galilee, and only one in Judæa,
despite careful search. There is, however, a circle of stones west of
Tiberias, and an enclosure of menhirs between Tyre and Sidon. According
to Perrot and Chipiez some of the Moabite monuments are very similar in
type to the Giants' Tombs of Sardinia. Others are simple dolmens. In a
good example at Ala Safat (Fig. 22) the floor of the tomb is formed by a
single flat slab of stone. The great cover-slab rests on two long
blocks, one on either side, placed on edge. The narrow ends are closed
up with smaller slabs, one of which, that which faces north, has a small
hole pierced in it. A similar closure slab with a hole is also found in
certain rock-tombs quite close to this dolmen. Apparently none of these
dolmens have been systematically excavated, and nothing is known of
their date.
[Illustration: FIG. 22. Dolmen with holed stone at Ala Safat. (After de
Luynes.)]
Menhirs, too, are not wanting in Syria. Perrot and Chipiez figure an
example from Gebel-Mousa in Moab which is quite unworked, except for a
shallow furrow across the centre of the face. In many cases the menhir
is surrounded by one or more rows of stones. Thus at Der Ghuzaleh a
menhir about 3 feet in height is set in the centre of what when complete
must have been a rectangle. In other cases the enclosure was elliptical
or circular in form. In an example at Minieh the menhir stands in the
centre of a double (in part triple) circle of stones, on which abuts an
elliptical enclosure. In some cases the circle has no proper entrance,
in others it has a door consisting of a large slab resting on two
others. The largest of the circles attains a diameter of 600 feet, and
has a double line of stones.
Within these circles and near them are found large numbers of monuments
consisting each of a large flat slab resting on two others. On the
upper surface of the top slab are often seen a number of basin-shaped
holes, sometimes connected by furrows. Many of the slabs are slightly
slanting, and it has been suggested that the series of holes and furrows
was intended for the pouring a libation of some kind. In a monument of
this type at Ammân the cover-slab slopes considerably; the upper part of
its surface is a network of small channels converging on a hole 11
inches deep about the centre of the slab. Here, again, no excavations
have been carried out, and we do not even know what was the purpose of
these structures. It is, however, probable that these trilithons were
not, like the dolmens, tombs, but served some religious purpose,
possibly connected with the worship of the menhirs.
In the Jaulân, where the rock consists of a slabby type of basalt, there
are many dolmens of fine appearance. They often lie east and west, and
are often broader at the west end. Many are surrounded by a double
circle of stones. In one of them two copper rings were found. At Ain
Dakkar more than 160 dolmen-tombs are visible from a single spot. They
are built on circular terraces of earth and stones about 3 feet high.
The Arabs call them Graves of the Children of Israel. Most of them lie
east and west, and are broader at the west. In the eastern slab there is
often a hole about 2 feet in diameter. Near Tsîl are several
corridor-tombs of simple type. Each consists of a long rectangular
chamber with only one cover-slab, that being at the west end. In a
well-known example of this type at Kosseir there is a hole in one of the
two uprights which support the cover.
These examples will serve to show the importance and variety of the
Syrian monuments. They present analogies with those of many parts of the
megalithic area, and we therefore await anxiously the publication of
Mackenzie's promised article on his own explorations in this district.
The central and southern parts of India afford numerous examples of
dolmens. They are to be found in almost all parts of Lower India from
the Nerbudda River to Cape Comorin. In the Nilgiri hills there are stone
circles and dolmens, and numbers of dolmens are said to exist in the
Neermul jungle in Central India. In the collectorate of Bellary dolmens
and other monuments to the number of 2129 have been recorded. Others
occur in the principality of Sorapoor and near Vellore in the Madras
presidency. These latter appear to be of two types, either with three
supports only or with four supports, one of which is pierced with a
circular hole. Of the 2200 dolmens known in the Deccan, half are of this
pierced type. They are known to the natives as "dwarfs' houses." One
only had a pair of uprights outside the pierced stone, thus forming a
sort of portico to the dolmen. Near Chittore in North Arcot there is
said to be a square mile of ground covered with these monuments. In them
were found human remains in sarcophagi, and fragments of black pottery.
Several of the Indian dolmens are said to have contained objects of
iron. Occasionally the dolmen is surrounded by a double circle of stones
or covered with a cairn. The Deccan, in addition to its numerous
dolmens, possesses also megalithic monuments of another type. They
consist each of two rows, each of thirteen unworked stones set as close
together as possible, in front of which is a row of three stones, each
about 4 feet high, not let into the ground. The planted stones were
whitewashed, and each was marked with a large spot of red paint with
black in the centre. These stones seem to have been in use in modern
times. Colonel Forbes Leslie thinks that a cock had been sacrificed on
one of the three stones which lie in front of the double row, but there
seems to be no certain evidence for this. It is, however, very probable
that these _alignements_ had some religious signification, and the same
is no doubt true of certain small circles of small stones, also found in
the Deccan.
The modern inhabitants of the Khasi Hills in India still make use of
megalithic monuments. They set up a group of an odd number of menhirs,
3, 5, 7, 9, or 11, and in front of these two structures of dolmen form.
These are raised in honour of some important member of the tribe who has
died, and whose spirit is thought to have done some good to the tribe.
If the benefits continue it is usual to increase the number of menhirs.
The earliest burials in Japan are marked by simple mounds of earth. It
was not until the beginning of the iron age that megalithic tombs came
into use. The true dolmen is not found in Japan, and all the known
graves are corridor-tombs covered with a mound. They are of four types.
First, we have a simple corridor with no separate chamber; secondly, a
corridor broadening out at one side near the end; thirdly, a true
chamber with a corridor of access; and fourthly, a type in which the
corridor is preceded by an antechamber. All four types occur in rough
unworked stone, roofed with huge slabs, but a few examples of the third
type are made of well-cut and dressed blocks. The mounds are usually
conical, though some are of a complex form shortly to be described. Some
of these contain stone sarcophagi. The bodies were never cremated, but
the bones are so damaged that it is impossible to say what the most
usual position was. Objects of bronze and iron together with pottery and
ornaments were found in the tombs.
The more important tombs are of a more complicated type. They seem to
have contained the remains of emperors and their families. They consist
each of a circular mound, to which is added on one side another mound of
trapezoidal form. The megalithic tomb-chamber or the sarcophagus which
sometimes replaces it lies in the circular part of the mound. The total
axial length of the basis of the whole mound is in a typical case--that
of Nara (Yamato)--674 feet, the diameter of the round end being 420
feet. The mounds have in most cases terraced sides, and are surrounded
by a moat. In early times it seems to have been the custom to slay or
bury alive the servants of the emperor on his mound, but this was given
up about the beginning of the Christian era.
These imperial double mounds seem to begin about two centuries before
the Christian era, and to continue for five or six centuries after it.
Many of them can be definitely assigned to their owners, and others are
attributed by tradition. Thus a rather small mound at the foot of Mount
Unebi (Yamato) is considered to be the burial place of the Emperor
Jimmu, the founder of the Imperial dynasty, and annual ceremonies are
performed before it.
The Japanese Emperors are still buried in terraced mounds, and in the
group of huge stone blocks which have been placed on the mound of the
Emperor Komei, who died in 1866, we may be tempted to see a survival of
the ancient megalithic chamber.
These early corridor-tombs are evidently not the work of the Ainu, the
aborigines of Japan, but of the Japanese invaders who conquered them.
These latter do not seem to have brought the idea of megalithic building
with them, as their earlier tombs are simple mounds. As no dolmen has
yet been found in Japan we cannot at present derive the corridor-tomb
there from it. It is, however, worthy of mention that true dolmens occur
as near as Corea, though none have been reported from China.
CHAPTER IX
THE BUILDERS OF THE MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS,
THEIR HABITS, CUSTOMS, RELIGION, ETC.
With regard to the date of the megalithic monuments it only remains to
sum up the evidence given in the previous chapters. It may be said that
in Europe they never belong to the beginning of the neolithic age, but
either to its end or to the period which followed it, i.e. to the age of
copper and bronze. The majority date from the dawn of this latter
period, though some of the chambered cairns of Ireland seem to belong to
the iron age. Outside Europe there are certainly megalithic tombs which
are late. In North Africa, for example, we know that the erection of
dolmens continued into the early iron age; many of the Indian tombs are
clearly late, and the corridor-tombs of Japan can be safely attributed
in part at least to the Christian era.
With what purpose were the megalithic monuments erected? The most simple
example, the menhir or upright stone, may have served many purposes. In
discussing the temples of Malta we saw reason for believing that the
megalithic peoples were in the habit of worshipping great stones as
such. Other stones, not actually worshipped, may mark the scene of some
great event. Jacob commemorated a dream by setting up the stone which
had served him as a pillow, and Samuel, victorious over the Philistines,
set up twelve stones, and called the place "Stones of Deliverance."
Others again perhaps stood in a spot devoted to some particular national
or religious ceremony. Thus the Angami of the present day in Assam set
up stones in commemoration of their village feasts. It seems clear from
the excavations that the menhirs do not mark the place of burials,
though they may in some cases have been raised in honour of the dead.
The question of the purpose of stone circles has already been dealt with
in connection with those of Great Britain. _Alignements_ are more
difficult to explain, for, from their form, they cannot have served as
temples in the sense of meeting-places for worship. Yet they must surely
have been connected with religion in some way or other. Possibly they
were not constructed once and for all, but the stones were added
gradually, each marking some event or the performance of some periodic
ceremony, or even the death of some great chief. The so-called
"Canaanite High Place" recently found at Gezer consists of a line of
ten menhirs running north and south, together with a large block in
which was a socket for an idol or other object of worship. Several
bodies of children found near it have suggested that the monument was a
place of sacrifice.
Other megalithic structures can be definitely classed as dwellings or
tombs, as we have seen in our separate treatment of them. It is not
improbable that, if we are right in considering the dolmen as the most
primitive form of megalithic monument, megalithic architecture was
funerary in origin. Yet, as we find it in its great diffusion, it
provides homes for the living as well as for the dead. In their original
home, perhaps in Africa, the megalithic race may have lived in huts of
wattle or skins, but after their migration the need of protection in a
hostile country and the exigencies of a colder climate may have forced
them to employ stone for their dwellings. In any case, in megalithic
architecture as seen in Europe the tomb and the dwelling types are
considerably intermixed, and may have reacted on one another. This,
however, does not justify the assertion so often made that the
megalithic tomb was a conscious imitation of the hut. It is true that
some peoples make the home of their dead to resemble that of the living.
Among certain tribes of Greenland it is usual to leave the dead man
seated in his hut by way of burial. But such a conception does not exist
among all peoples, and to say that the dolmen is an imitation in stone
of a hut is the purest conjecture. Still more improbable is Montelius's
idea that the corridor-tomb imitates a dwelling. It is true that the
Eskimos have a type of hut which is entered by a low passage often 30
feet in length, but for one who believes as Montelius does that the
corridor-tomb is southern or eastern in origin such a derivation is
impossible, for this type of house is essentially northern, its aim
being to exclude the icy winds. In the south it would be intolerably
close, and its low passage besides serving no purpose would be
inconvenient.
There is really no reason to derive either the dolmen or the
corridor-tomb from dwellings at all. Granted the use of huge stones,
both are purely natural forms, and the presence of the corridor in the
latter is dictated by necessity. The problem was how to cover a large
tomb-chamber with a mound and to leave it still accessible for later
interments, and the obvious solution was to add a covered passage
leading out to the edge of the mound.
A remarkable feature of the megalithic tombs is the occurrence in many
of them of a small round or rectangular hole in one of the walls,
usually an end-wall, more rarely a partition-wall between two chambers.
Occasionally the hole was formed by placing side by side two upright
blocks each with a semicircular notch in its edge. Tombs with a holed
block or blocks occur in England, instances being the barrows of Avening
and Rodmarton, King Orry's Grave in the Isle of Man, Lanyon Quoit in
Cornwall, and Plas Newydd in Wales, which has two holes. There are also
examples in Ireland, France, Belgium, Central Germany, and Scandinavia,
where they are common. Passing further afield we find holes in the
Giants' Graves of Sardinia, and in Syria, the Caucasus, and India, where
half the dolmens in the Deccan are of this type. The holes are usually
too small to allow of the passage of a human body. It has been suggested
that they served as an outlet for the soul of the deceased, or in some
cases as a means of passing in food to him.
Attention has been frequently drawn to curious round pits so often found
on the stones of dolmens and usually known as cup-markings. They vary in
diameter from about two to four inches, and are occasionally connected
by a series of narrow grooves in the stone. They vary considerably in
number, sometimes there are few, sometimes many. They occur nearly
always on the upper surface of the cover-slab, very rarely on its under
surface or on the side-walls.
Some have attempted to show that these pits are purely natural and not
artificial. It has been suggested, for instance, that they are simply
the casts of a species of fossil sea-urchin which has weathered out
from the surface of the stone. This explanation may be true in some
cases, but it will not serve in all, for the 'cups' are sometimes
arranged in such regular order that their artificial origin is palpable.
These markings are found on dolmens and corridor-tombs in Palestine,
North Africa, Corsica, France, Germany, Scandinavia, and Great Britain.
In Wales there is a fine example of a dolmen with pits at Clynnog Fawr,
while in Cornwall we may instance the monument called "The Three
Brothers of Grugith" near Meneage.
There is no clue to the purpose of these pits. Some have thought that
they were made to hold the blood of sacrifice which was poured over the
slab, and from some such idea may have arisen some of the legends of
human victims which still cling round the dolmens. Others have opposed
to this the fact that the pits sometimes occur on vertical walls or
under the cover-slabs, and have preferred to see in them some totemistic
signification or some expression of star-worship. It is possible that we
have to deal with a complex and not a simple phenomenon, and that the
pits were not all made to serve a single purpose. Those which cover some
of the finest stones at Mnaidra and Hagiar Kim are certainly meant to be
ornamental, though there may be in them a reminiscence of some religious
tradition. In any case, it is worth while to remember that cup-markings
also occur on natural rocks and boulders in Switzerland, Scandinavia,
Great Britain (where there is a good example near Ilkley in Yorkshire),
near Como in Italy, and in Germany, Russia, and India.
Of the builders of the megalithic monuments themselves we cannot expect
to know very much, especially while their origin remains veiled in
obscurity. Yet there are a few facts which stand out clearly. We even
know something about their appearance, for the skulls found in the
megalithic tombs have in many cases been subjected to careful
examination and measurement. Into the detail of these measurements we
cannot enter here; suffice it to say that the most important of them are
the maximum length of the skull from front to back and its maximum
breadth, both measures, of course, being taken in a straight line with a
pair of callipers, and not round the contour of the skull. If we now
divide the maximum breadth by the maximum length and multiply the result
by 100 we get what is known as the cephalic index of the skull. Thus if
a skull has a length of 180 millimetres and a breadth of 135, its
cephalic index is 135/180 X 100, i.e. 75. It is clear that in a roundish
type of head the breadth will be greater in proportion to the length
than in a narrow elliptical type. Thus in a broad head the cephalic
index is high, while in a narrow head it is low. The former is called
brachycephalic (short-headed), and the latter dolichocephalic
(long-headed).
This index is now accepted by most anthropologists as a useful criterion
of race, though, of course, there are other characteristics which must
often be taken into account, such as the height and breadth of the face,
the cubic capacity of the skull and its general contour. At any rate, if
we can show that the skulls of the megalithic tombs conform to a single
type in respect of their index we shall have a presumption, though not a
certainty, that they belong to a single race.
For Africa the evidence consists in a group of twenty skulls from
dolmen-tombs giving cephalic indices which range from 70.5 to 84.4. The
average index is 75.27, and the majority of the indices lay within a few
units of that number. Ten skulls from Halsaflieni in Malta have cephalic
indices running from 66 to 75.1, the average being 71.84. Of a series of
44 skulls from the rock-tombs of the Petit Morin in France, 12 had an
index of over 80, 22 were between 75 and 80, and 10 were below 75. But
in the dolmens of Lozère distinctly broad skulls were frequent. A series
of British neolithic skulls, mostly from barrows, ran from 67 to 77.
The builders of the megalithic monuments thus belonged in the main to a
fairly dolichocephalic race or races, for the large majority of the
skulls measured are of a long-headed type. There are, however, in
various localities, especially in France, occasional anomalous types of
skull which are distinctly brachycephalic, and show that contamination
of some kind was taking or had taken place.
Of the state of civilization to which the builders of the megalithic
monuments had attained, and of the social condition in which they lived,
there is something to be gathered. It is clear in the first place from
the evidence of the Maltese buildings that they were a pastoral people
who domesticated the ox, the sheep, the pig, and the goat, upon whose
flesh they partly lived. Shellfish also formed a part of their diet, and
the shells when emptied of their contents were occasionally pierced to
be used as pendants or to form necklaces or bracelets.
Whether these people were agricultural is a question more difficult to
answer. It is true that flat stones have been found, on which some kind
of cereal was ground up with the aid of round pebbles, but the grain for
which these primitive mills were used may have been wild and not
cultivated. No grain of any kind has been found in the Maltese
settlements.
The megalithic race do not seem to have been great traders. This is
remarkably exemplified in Malta, where there is not a trace of
connection with the wonderful civilization which must have been
flourishing so near at hand in Crete and the Ægean at the time when the
megalithic temples were built. The island seems to have been entirely
self-sufficing, except for the importation of obsidian, probably from
the neighbouring island of Linosa. Of copper, which wide trade would
have introduced, there is no sign.
Some writers, however, have argued the existence of extensive
trade-relations from the occurrence of a peculiar kind of turquoise
called _callaïs_ in some of the megalithic monuments of France and
Portugal. The rarity of this stone has inclined some archæologists to
attribute it to a single source, while some have gone so far as to
consider it eastern in origin. For the last theory there is no evidence
whatsoever. No natural deposit of _callaïs_ is known, but it is highly
probable that the sources of the megalithic examples lay in France or
Portugal.
It would of course be foolish to suppose that the megalithic people
received none of the products of other countries, especially at a time
when the discovery of copper was giving a great impetus to trade. No
doubt they enjoyed the benefits of that kind of slow filtering trade
which a primitive tribe, even if it had wished, could hardly have
avoided, but they were not a great trading nation as were the Cretans of
the Middle and Late Minoan Periods, or the Egyptians of the XIIth and
XVIIIth Dynasties. We know nothing of their political conditions, of the
groups into which they were divided, or the centres from which they were
governed. That there were strong centres of government is, however,
clear from the very existence of such huge monuments, many of which must
have required the combined and organized labour of large armies of
workers, in the gathering of which the state was doubtless strongly
backed by religion.
We have seen that the megalithic peoples frequently dwelt in huts of
great stones. Yet in the majority of cases their huts must have been,
like those of most primitive races, of perishable material, such as
wood, wattle, skins, turf, and clay. As for their form there was
probably a continual conflict between the round and the rectangular
plan, just as there was in the stone examples. Which form prevailed in
any particular district was probably determined almost by accident. Thus
in Sardinia the round type was mostly kept for the huts and _nuraghi_,
while the rectangular was reserved for the dolmens and Giants' Graves.
Even here the confusion between the two types is shown by the fact that
near Birori there are two dolmens with a round plan. Again, in
Pantelleria the huts of the Mursia are rectangular, while the _sesi_,
which are tombs, are roughly circular. It is therefore probable that the
round and rectangular types of building were both in use among the
megalithic people before they spread over Europe.
Within their huts these people led a life of the simplest description.
Their weapons and tools, though occasionally of copper, were for the
most part of stone. Flint was the most usual material. In Scandinavia it
was often polished, but elsewhere it was merely flaked. The implements
made from it were of simple types, knives, borers, scrapers, lanceheads,
and more rarely arrowheads. Many of these were quite roughly made, no
more flaking being done than was absolutely necessary to produce the
essential form, and the work being, when possible, confined to one face
of the flint.
In the Mediterranean obsidian, a volcanic rock, occasionally took the
place of flint, especially in Sardinia and Pantelleria. Axes or celts
were often made of flint in Scandinavia and North Germany, but elsewhere
other stones, such as jade, jadeite, and diorite were commonly used.
We can only guess at the way in which the megalithic people were
clothed. No doubt the skins of the animals they domesticated and of
those they hunted provided them with some form of covering, at any rate
in countries where it was needed. Possibly they spun wool or flax into a
thread, for at Halsaflieni two objects were found which look like
spindle-whorls, and others occur on sites which are almost certainly to
be attributed to the megalithic people. There is, however, nothing to
show that they wove the thread into stuffs.
The love of personal decoration was highly developed among them, and all
branches of nature were called upon to minister to their desire for
ornament. Shells, pierced and strung separately or in masses, were
perhaps their favourite adornment, but close on these follow beads and
pendants of almost every conceivable substance, bone, horn, stone, clay,
nuts, beans, copper, and occasionally gold.
One small object assumes a great importance on account of its wide
distribution. This is the conical button with two converging holes in
its base to pass the thread through. This little object, which may have
served exactly the purpose of the modern button, occurs in several parts
of the megalithic area. There are examples in Malta made of stone and
shell. Elsewhere it is most usually of bone. It occurs in Sardinia, in
France, in the rock-tombs of Gard, and in the corridor and rock-tombs of
Lozère and Ardèche, in Portugal in the _allée couverte_ of Monte
Abrahaõ, in Bohuslän (Sweden), and at Carrowmore in Ireland. Outside the
megalithic area it has been found in two of the Swiss lake-dwellings and
in Italy.
The pottery of the megalithic people was of a simple type. It was all
made by hand, the potter's wheel being still unknown to the makers.
Pottery with painted designs does not occur outside Sicily, except for
a few poor and late examples in Malta. The best vases were of fairly
purified clay, moderately well fired, and having a polished surface,
usually of a darkish colour. On this surface were often incised
ornamental designs, varying both in type and in the skill with which
they were engraved. As a rule the schemes were rectilinear, more rarely
they were carried out in curves. Sardinia furnishes some fine examples
of rectilinear work, while the best of the curved designs are found in
Malta, where elaborate conventional and even naturalistic patterns are
traced out with wonderful freedom and steadiness of hand.
The pottery of the megalithic area is not all alike; it would be
surprising if it were. Even supposing that the invaders brought with
them a single definite style of pottery-making this would rapidly become
modified by local conditions and by the already existing pottery
industry of the country, often, no doubt, superior to that of the
new-comers. Nevertheless, there are a few points of similarity between
the pottery of various parts of the megalithic area. The most remarkable
example is the bell-shaped cup, which occurs in Denmark, England,
France, Spain, Sardinia, and possibly Malta (the specimen is too broken
for certainty). Outside the area it is found in Bohemia, Hungary, and
North Italy. Here, as in the case of the conical button, we cannot argue
that the form was actually introduced by the megalithic race, though
there is a certain possibility in favour of such a hypothesis.
That the megalithic people possessed a religion of some kind will hardly
be doubted. Their careful observance of the rites due to the dead, and
their construction of buildings which can hardly have been anything but
places of worship, is a strong testimony to this. We have seen that in
the Maltese temples the worship of baetyls or pillars of stone seems to
have been carried on. Several stone objects which can scarcely have been
anything but baetyls were found in the megalithic structures of Los
Millares in Spain, but none are known elsewhere in the megalithic area.
There is some reason for thinking that among the megalithic race there
existed a cult of the axe. In France, for instance, the sculptured
rock-tombs of the valley of the Petit Morin show, some a human figure,
some an axe, and some a combination of the two. This same juxtaposition
of the two also occurs on a slab which closed the top of a corbelled
chamber at Collorgues in Gard. A simple _allée couverte_ at Göhlitzsch
in Saxony has on one of its blocks an axe and handle engraved and
coloured red. There are further examples in the _allée couverte_ of
Gavr'inis and the dolmen called La Table des Marchands at Locmariaquer.
These sculptured axes call to mind at once the numerous axe-shaped
pendants of fine polished stone (jade, jadeite, etc.) found in Malta,
Sicily, Sardinia, and France, and apparently used as amulets. The
excavation of Crete has brought to light a remarkable worship of the
double axe, and it has been argued with great probability that one of
the early boat signs figured on the pre-dynastic painted vases of Egypt
is a double axe, and that this was a cult object. It seems very probable
that in the megalithic area, or at least in part of it, there was a
somewhat similar worship, the object of cult, however, being not a
double but a single axe, usually represented as fitted with a handle. It
need not be assumed that the axe itself was worshipped, though this is
not impossible; it is more likely that it was an attribute of some god
or goddess.
Among the rock-hewn tombs of the valley of the Petit Morin in the
department of Marne, France, were seven which contained engravings on
one of the walls. Several of these represent human figures (Fig. 13).
The eyes are not marked, but the hair and nose are clear. In some the
breasts are shown, in others they are omitted. On each figure is
represented what appears to be a collar or necklace. Similar figures
occur on the slabs of some of the _allées couvertes_ of Seine et Oise,
and on certain blocks found in and near megalithic burials in the South
of France. Moreover, in the departments of Aveyron, Tarn, and Hérault
have been found what are known as menhir-statues, upright pillars of
stone roughly shaped into human semblance at the top; they are of two
types, the one clearly female and the other with no breasts, but always
with a collar or baldric.
It has been argued that these figures represent a deity or deities of
the megalithic people. Déchelette, comparing what are apparently tattoo
marks on a menhir-statue at Saint Sermin (Aveyron) with similar marks on
a figure cut on a schist plaque at Idanha a Nova (Portugal) and on a
marble idol from the island of Seriphos in the Ægean, seems inclined to
argue that in France and Portugal we have the same deity as in the
Ægean. This seems rather a hazardous conjecture, for we know that many
primitive peoples practised tattooing, and, moreover, it is not certain
that the French figures represent deities at all. It is quite as likely,
if not more so, that they represent the deceased, and take the place of
a grave-stone: this would account for the occurrence of both male and
female types. This was almost certainly the purpose of six stones that
remain of a line that ran parallel to a now destroyed tomb at Tamuli
(Sardinia). Three have breasts as if to distinguish the sex of three of
those buried in the tomb. We must not therefore assume that any of the
French figures represents a 'dolmen-deity.'
The method of burial observed in the megalithic tombs is almost
universally inhumation. Cremation seems to occur only in France, but
there it is beyond all doubt. The known examples are found in the
departments of Finistère, Marne, and Aisne, and in the neighbourhood of
Paris. In Finistère out of 92 megalithic burials examined 61 were
cremations, 26 were inhumations, and 5 were uncertain. It is extremely
curious that this small portion of France should be the only part of the
megalithic area where cremation was practised. It is generally held that
cremation was brought into Europe by the broad-headed 'Alpine' people,
who seem to have invaded the centre of the continent at some period in
the neolithic age. It is possible that in parts of France a mixture took
place between the megalithic builders and the Alpine race. Intermarriage
would no doubt lead to confusion in many cases between the two rites.
In all other cases the builders of the megalithic monuments buried their
dead unburned. Often the body was lying stretched out on its back, or
was set in a sitting position against the side of the tomb; but most
frequently it was placed in what is known as the contracted position,
laid on one side, generally the left, with the knees bent and drawn up
towards the chin, the arms bent at the elbow, and the hands placed close
to the face. Many explanations of this position have been suggested.
Some see in it a natural posture of repose, some an attempt to crowd the
body into as small a space as possible. Some have suggested that the
corpse was tightly bound up with cords in order that the spirit might
not escape and do harm to the living. Perhaps the most widely approved
theory is that which considers this position to be embryonic, i.e. the
position of the embryo previous to birth. None of these explanations is
entirely convincing, but no better one has been put forward up to the
present.
This custom, it must be noted, was not limited to the megalithic
peoples. It was the invariable practice of the pre-dynastic Egyptians
and has been found further east in Persia. It occurs in the neolithic
period in Crete and the Ægean, in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and other
parts of Europe, and it is one of the facts which go to show that the
builders of the megaliths were ethnologically connected, however
remotely, with their predecessors in Europe.
At Halsaflieni, in Malta, we have perhaps examples of the curious custom
of secondary interment; the body is buried temporarily in some suitable
place, and after the flesh has left the bones the latter are collected
and thrown together into a common ossuary. That the bones at Halsaflieni
were placed there when free from flesh is probable from the closeness
with which they were packed together (see p. 111). There are also
possible examples in Sicily (see p. 79). The custom was not unknown in
neolithic days, especially in Crete. It is still occasionally practised
on the island and on the Greek mainland, where, after the dead have lain
a few years in hallowed soil, their bones are dug up, roughly cleaned,
and deposited in caves.
CHAPTER X
WHO WERE THE BUILDERS, AND WHENCE DID THEY COME?
Modern discussion of the origin of the megalithic monuments may be said
to date from Bertrand's publication of the French examples in 1864. In
this work Bertrand upheld the thesis that "the dolmens and _allées
couvertes_ are sepulchres; and their origin seems up to the present to
be northern." In 1865 appeared Bonstetten's famous _Essai sur les
dolmens_, in which he maintained that the dolmens were constructed by
one and the same people spreading over Europe from north to south. At
this time the dolmens of North Africa were still unstudied. In 1867
followed an important paper by Bertrand. In 1872 two events of
importance to the subject occurred, the publication of Fergusson's _Rude
Stone Monuments in All Countries_, and the discussion raised at the
Brussels Congress by General Faidherbe's paper on the dolmens of
Algeria. Faidherbe maintained the thesis that dolmens, whether in Europe
or Africa, were the work of a single people moving southward from the
Baltic Sea.
The question thus raised has been keenly debated since. At the
Stockholm Congress in 1874 de Mortillet advanced the theory that
megalithic monuments in different districts were due to different
peoples, and that what spread was the custom of building such structures
and not the builders themselves. This theory has been accepted by most
archæologists, including Montelius, Salomon Reinach, Sophus Müller,
Hoernes, and Déchelette. But while the rest believe the influences which
produced the megalithic monuments to have spread from east to west, i.e.
from Asia to Europe, Salomon Reinach holds the contrary view, which he
has supported in a remarkable paper called _Le Mirage Oriental_,
published in 1893.
The questions we have to discuss are, therefore, as follows: Are all the
megalithic monuments due to a single race or to several? If to a single
race, whence did that race come and in what direction did it move? If to
several, did the idea of building megalithic structures arise among the
several races independently, or did it spread from one to another?
We shall consider first the theory that the idea of megalithic building
was evolved among several races independently, i.e. that it was a phase
of culture through which they separately passed.
On the whole, this idea has not found favour among archæologists. The
use of stone for building might have arisen in many places
independently. But megalithic architecture is something much more than
this. It is the use of great stones in certain definite and particular
ways. We have already examined what may be called the style of
megalithic architecture and found that the same features are noticeable
in all countries where these buildings occur. In each case we see a type
of construction based on the use of large orthostatic slabs, sometimes
surmounted by courses of horizontal masonry, with either a roof of
horizontal slabs or a corbelled vault. Associated with this we
frequently find the hewing of underground chambers in the rock. In
almost all countries where megalithic structures occur certain fixed
types prevail; the dolmen is the most general of these, and it is clear
that many of the other forms are simply developments of this. The
occurrence of structures with a hole in one of the walls and of blocks
with 'cup-markings' is usual over the whole of the megalithic area.
There are even more remarkable resemblances in detail between structures
in widely separated countries. Thus the Giants' Tombs of Sardinia all
have a concave façade which forms a kind of semicircular court in front
of the entrance to the tomb. This feature is seen also in the temples of
Malta, in the tomb of Los Millares in Spain, in the _naus_ of the
Balearic Isles (where, however, the curve is slight), in the Giant's
Grave of Annaclochmullin and the chambered cairn of Newbliss in Ireland,
in the tomb of Cashtal-yn-Ard in the Isle of Man, in the barrow of West
Tump in Gloucestershire, and in the horned cairns of the north of
Scotland. These parallels are due to something more than coincidence; in
fact, it is clear that megalithic building is a widespread and
homogeneous system, which, despite local differences, always preserves
certain common features pointing to a single origin. It is thus
difficult to accept the suggestion that it is merely a phase through
which many races have passed. The phases which occur in many races alike
are always those which are natural and necessary in the development of a
people, such as the phase of using copper. But there is nothing either
natural or necessary in the use of huge unwieldy blocks of stone where
much smaller ones would have sufficed.
There are further objections to this theory in the distribution of the
megalithic buildings both in space and time. In space they occupy a very
remarkable position along a vast sea-board which includes the
Mediterranean coast of Africa and the Atlantic coast of Europe. In other
words, they lie entirely along a natural sea route. It is more than
accident that the many places in which, according to this theory, the
megalithic phase independently arose all lie in most natural sea
connection with each other, while not one is in the interior of Europe.
In time the vast majority of the megalithic monuments of Europe seem to
begin near the end of the neolithic period and cover the copper age,
the later forms continuing occasionally into that of bronze. Here again
it is curious that megalithic building, if merely an independent phase
in many countries, should arise in so many at about the same time, and
with no apparent reason. Had it been the use of _worked_ stones that
arose, and had this followed the appearance of copper tools, the
advocates of this theory would have had a stronger case, but there seems
to be no reason why huge unworked stones should _simultaneously_ begin
to be employed for tombs in many different countries unless this use
spread from a single source.
For these reasons it is impossible to consider megalithic building as a
mere phase through which many nations passed, and it must therefore have
been a system originating with one race, and spreading far and wide,
owing either to trade influence or migration. But can we determine
which?
Great movements of races by sea were not by any means unusual in
primitive days, in fact, the sea has always been less of an obstacle to
early man than the land with its deserts, mountains, and unfordable
rivers. There is nothing inherently impossible or even improbable in the
suggestion that a great immigration brought the megalithic monuments
from Sweden to India or vice versa. History is full of instances of such
migrations. According to the most widely accepted modern theory the
whole or at least the greater part of the neolithic population of Europe
moved in from some part of Africa at the opening of the neolithic age.
In medieval history we have the example of the Arabs, who in their
movement covered a considerable portion of the very megalithic area
which we are discussing.
On the other hand, many find it preferable to suppose that over this
same distance there extended a vast trade route or a series of trade
routes, along which travelled the influences which account for the
presence of precisely similar dolmens in Denmark, Spain, and the
Caucasus. Yet although much has been written about neolithic trade
routes little has been proved, and the fact that early man occasionally
crossed large tracts of land and sea in the great movements of migration
does not show that he also did so by way of trade, nor does it prove the
existence of such steady and extensive commercial relations as such a
theory of the megalithic monuments would seem to require. Immigration is
often forced on a race. Change of climate or the diverting of the course
of a great river may make their country unfit for habitation, or they
may be expelled by a stronger race. In either case they must migrate,
and we know from history that they often covered long distances in their
attempt to follow the line of least resistance. Thus there is nothing a
priori improbable in the idea that the megalithic monuments were built
by a single invading race.
There are other considerations which support such a theory. It will be
readily admitted that the commonest and most widely distributed form of
the megalithic monument is the dolmen. Both this and its obvious
derivatives, the Giant's Grave, the _allée couverte_, and others, are
known to have been tombs, while other types of structure, such as the
Maltese temple, the menhir, and the cromlech, almost certainly had a
religious purpose. It is difficult to believe that these types of
building, so closely connected with religion and burial, were introduced
into all these regions simply by the influence of trade relations.
Religious customs and the burial rites connected with them are perhaps
the most precious possession of a primitive people, and they are those
in which they most oppose and resent change of any kind, even when it
only involves detail and not principle. Thus it is almost incredible
that the people, for instance, of Spain, because they were told by
traders that the people of North Africa buried in dolmens, gave up, even
in isolated instances, their habit of interment in trench graves in
favour of burial in dolmens. It is still more impossible to believe that
this unnatural event happened in one country after another. It is true
that the use of metal was spread by means of commerce, but here there
was something to be gained by adopting the new discovery, and there was
no sacrifice of religious custom or principle. An exchange of products
between one country and another is not unnatural, but a traffic in
burial customs is unthinkable.
Perhaps, however, it was not the form of the dolmen which was brought by
commerce, but simply the art of architecture in general, and this was
adapted to burial purposes. To this there are serious objections. In the
first place it does not explain why exactly the same types of building
(e.g. the dolmen), showing so many similarities of peculiar detail,
occur in countries so far apart; and in the second place, if what was
carried by trade was the art of building alone, why should the learners
go out of their way to use huge stones when smaller ones would have
suited their purpose equally well? That the megalithic builders knew how
to employ smaller stones we know from their work; that they preferred to
use large ones for certain purposes was not due to ignorance or chance,
it was because the large stone as such had some particular meaning and
association for them. We cannot definitely say that large stones were
themselves actually worshipped, but there can be no possible doubt that
for some reason or other they were regarded as peculiarly fit to be used
in sanctified places such as the tombs of the dead. It is impossible
that the men who possessed the skill to lay the horizontal upper courses
of the Hagiar Kim temple should have taken the trouble to haul to the
spot and use vast blocks over 20 feet in length where far smaller ones
would have been more convenient, unless they had some deep-seated
prejudice in favour of great stones.
Such are the main difficulties involved by the influence theory. On the
other hand, objections have been urged against the idea that the
monuments were all built by one and the same race. Thus Dr. Montelius in
his excellent _Orient und Europa_ says, "In Europe at this time dwelt
Aryans, but the Syrians and Sudanese cannot be Aryans," the inference
being, of course, that the European dolmens were built by a different
race from that which built those of Syria and the Sudan. Unfortunately,
however, the major premise is not completely true, for though it is true
that Aryans did live in Europe at this time, there were also people in
Europe who were not Aryans, and it is precisely among them that
megalithic buildings occur.
The French archæologist Déchelette also condemns the idea of a single
race. "Anthropological observations," he says, "have long since ruined
this adventurous hypothesis." He does not tell us what these
observations are, but we presume that he refers to the occurrence of
varying skull types among the people buried in the megalithic tombs.
Nothing is more natural than that some variation should occur. We are
dealing with a race which made enormous journeys, and thus became
contaminated by the various other races with which it came in contact.
It may even have been a mixed race to start with. Thus even if we found
skulls of very different types in the dolmens this would not in the
least disprove the idea that dolmen building was introduced into various
countries by one and the same race. It would be simply a case of the
common anthropological fact that a race immigrating into an already
inhabited country becomes to some extent modified by intermarriage with
the earlier inhabitants. The measurements given in the last chapter
would seem to show that despite local variation there is an underlying
homogeneity in the skulls of the megalithic people.
It thus seems that the most probable theory of the origin of the
megalithic monuments is that this style of building was brought to the
various countries in which we find it by a single race in an immense
migration or series of migrations. It is significant that this theory
has been accepted by Dr. Duncan Mackenzie, who is perhaps the first
authority on the megalithic structures of the Mediterranean basin.
One question still remains to be discussed. From what direction did
megalithic architecture come, and what was its original home? This is
clearly a point which is not altogether dependent on the means by which
this architecture was diffused. Montelius speaks in favour of an Asiatic
origin. He considers that caves, and tombs accessible from above, i.e.
simple pits dug in the earth, were native in Europe, while tombs reached
from the side, such as dolmens and corridor-tombs, were introduced into
Europe from the east. Salomon Reinach, arguing mainly from the early
appearance of the objects found in the tombs of Scandinavia and the
rarity of the simpler types of monument, such as the dolmen, in Germany
and South Europe, suggests that megalithic monuments first appeared in
North Europe and spread southwards. Mackenzie is more inclined to
believe in an African origin. If he is right it may be that some
climatic change, possibly the decrease of rainfall in what is now the
Sahara desert, caused a migration from Africa to Europe very similar to
that which many believe to have given to Europe its early neolithic
population. The megalithic people may even have been a branch of the
same vast race as the neolithic: this would explain the fact that both
inhumed their dead in the contracted position.
It is probable that the problem will never be solved. The only way to
attempt a solution would be to show that in some part of the megalithic
area the structures were definitely earlier than in any other, and that
as we move away from that part in any direction they become later and
later. Such a means of solution is not hopeful, for the earliest form
of structure, the dolmen, occurs in all parts of the area, and if we
attempt to date by objects we are met by the difficulty that a dolmen in
one place which contained copper might be earlier than one in another
place which contained none, copper having been known in the former place
earlier than in the latter.
It still remains to consider the question of the origin of the rock-hewn
sepulchre and its relation to the megalithic monument. The rock-tomb
occurs in Egypt, Phoenicia, Rhodes, Cyprus, Crete, South Italy, Sicily,
Sardinia, Malta, Pianosa, the Iberian Peninsula, the Balearic Isles, and
France. In all these places there are examples which are certainly
early, i.e. belong to the neolithic or early metal age, with the
exception of Malta and perhaps Rhodes and Phoenicia. Two types are
common, the chamber cut in the vertical face of rock and thus entered
from the side, sometimes by a horizontal passage, and the chamber cut
underground and entered from a vertical or sloping shaft placed not
directly over the chamber, but immediately to one side of it. It is
unlikely that these two types have a separate origin, for they are
clearly determined by geological reasons. A piece of country where
vertical cliffs or faces of rock abounded was suited to the first type,
while the other alone was possible when the ground consisted of a flat
horizontal surface of rock. We frequently find the two side by side and
containing identically the same type of remains. In South-East Sicily we
have the horizontal entrance in the tombs of the rocky gorge of
Pantalica, while the vertical shaft is the rule in the tombs of the
Plemmirio, only a few miles distant.
Two curious facts are noticeable with regard to the distribution of the
rock-hewn tombs. In the first place they are all in the vicinity of the
Mediterranean, and in the second some occur in the megalithic area,
while others do not. The examples of Egypt, Cyprus, and Crete show that
this type of tomb flourished in the Eastern Mediterranean. Was it from
here that the type was introduced into the megalithic area, or did the
megalithic people bring with them a tradition of building rock-tombs
totally distinct from that which is represented by the tombs of Egypt,
Cyprus, and Crete?
The question is difficult to answer. One thing alone is clear, that in
certain places, such as Malta and Sardinia, the megalithic people were
not averse to reproducing in the solid rock the forms which they more
usually erected with large stones above ground. The finest instance of
this is the Halsaflieni hypogeum in Malta, where the solid rock is hewn
out with infinite care to imitate the form and even the details of
surface building.
Similarly we have seen that both in Sardinia and in France the same
forms of tomb were rendered in great stones or in solid rock almost
indifferently.
There can therefore be no doubt that the hewing out of rock was
practised by the megalithic people, and that they were no mean exponents
of the art. We have no proof that they brought this art along with them
from their original centre of dispersion, though if they did it is
curious that they did not carry it into other countries where they
penetrated besides those of the Mediterranean. It may be that early
rock-tombs will yet be found in North Africa, but it seems improbable
that, had they existed in the British Isles, in North Germany, or in
Scandinavia, not a single example should have been found.
On the other hand, if the megalithic people did not bring the idea of
the rock-tomb with them we must suppose either that it evolved among
them after their migration, or that they adopted it from the Eastern
Mediterranean. The last supposition is particularly unlikely, as it
would involve the modification of a burial custom by foreign influence.
We have, in fact, no evidence on which to judge the question. Perhaps it
is least unreasonable to suppose that the idea of the rock-tomb was
brought into the megalithic area by the same people who introduced the
megalithic monuments, and did not result from contact with the Eastern
Mediterranean. Similarly we ought perhaps to disclaim any direct
connection between the corridor-tombs of the megalithic area and the
great _tholoi_ of Crete and the Greek mainland. At first sight there is
a considerable similarity between them. The Treasury of Atreus at Mycenæ
with its corbelled circular chamber and long rectangular corridor seems
very little removed, except in size and finish, from the tombs of Gavr'
Inis and Lough Crew. Yet there are vital points of difference. The two
last are tombs built partly with upright slabs on the surface of the
ground, entered by horizontal corridors, and covered with mounds. The
Treasury of Atreus is simply an elaborated rock-tomb cut underground
with a sloping shaft; as the ground consisted only of loose soil a
coating of stone was a necessity, and hence the resemblance to a
megalithic monument.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF THE MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS
GENERAL
Fergusson, _Rude Stone Monuments in all Countries_ (London 1872).
Bonstetten, _Essai sur les dolmens_ (Geneva 1865).
Mortillet, _Compte rendu du congrès d'archéologie
préhistorique_, Stockholm, 1874, pp. 267 ff.
Reinach, _Le mirage oriental_, in _L'Anthropologie_, 1893, pp. 557 ff.
Montelius, _Orient und Europa_.
Borlase, _The Dolmens of Ireland_, Vols. II and III.
Reinach, _Terminologie des monuments mégalithiques
in Revue archéologique_, 3^{e} sér., XXII, 1893.
Westropp, _Prehistoric Phases_ (London 1872).
ENGLAND AND WALES
Fergusson, _op. cit._
_Recent Excavations at Stonehenge, Archæologia_, LVIII, pp. 37 ff.
Flinders Petrie, _Stonehenge: Plans, Descriptions, and
Theories_ (London 1880).
Windle, _Remains of the Prehistoric Age in England._
James, Sir Henry, _Plans and Photos of Stonehenge and of Turnsuchan
in the Island of Lewis_ (Southampton 1867).
Evans, Sir A., _Archæological Review_, II, 1889, pp. 313 ff.
Lockyer, Sir N., _Nature_, November 21st, 1901.
Hinks, _XIXth Century_, June, 1903, pp. 1002 ff.
Lockyer, Sir N., _Nature_, LXXI, 1904-5, pp. 297 ff.,
345 ff., 367 ff., 391 ff., 535 ff.
Lewis, A. A., _Stone Circles in Britain, Archæological
Journal_, XLIX, pp. 136 ff.
Thurnam, _Ancient British Barrows, Archæologia_,
XLII, pp. 161 ff., XLIII, pp. 285 ff.
Lewis, A. A., _Prehistoric Remains in Cornwall, Journal of the
Anthrop. Inst.,_ XXV, 1895, and XXXV, 1905.
Kermode and Herdman, _Illustrated Notes on Manks
Antiquities_ (Liverpool 1904).
SCOTLAND
Wilson, _The Archæological and Prehistoric Annals of Scotland._
Forbes Leslie, _Early Races of Scotland._
Spence, Magnus, _Standing Stones and Maeshowe of Stenness._
IRELAND
Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland._
Lewis, A. A., _Some Stone Circles in Ireland_, in
_Journal Anthrop. Inst.,_ XXXIX, pp. 517 ff.
SWEDEN
Montelius, _Orient und Europa._
Montelius, _Kulturgeschichte Schwedens._
Montelius, _Dolmens en France et en Suède_ (Le Mans 1907).
Montelius, Graf från stenåldern, upptäckt vid
Öringe i Ekeby socken, 1907.
Nilsson, _Das Steinalter, oder die Ureinwohner des
Scandinavischen Nordens_ (Hamburg 1865).
DENMARK
Montelius, _Orient und Europa._
Sophus Müller, _L'Europe préhistorique._
Sophus Müller, _Nordische Alterthumskunde._
HOLLAND
_Archæological Journal_, 1870, pp. 53 ff.
_Journal Anthrop. Inst._, VI, 1876, p. 158.
_Compte rendu du congrès d'arch. préhist._, Stockholm, 1874.
BELGIUM
Engelhardt, _Om stendysser og deres geografiske udbredelse_,
in _Aarböger f. nord. Oldkynd._, 1870, pp. 177 ff.
GERMANY
Krause und Schoetensack in _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_,
1893 (Altmark only).
Morlot, _L'archéologie du Meclenbourg_ (Zurich 1868).
von Estorff, _Heidnische Altertümer der Gegend von
Aelzen_ (Hanover 1846).
SWITZERLAND
Keller, _Pfahlbauten_, 3 Bericht (Zurich, 1860), p. 101;
Pl. XI, Figs. 8 and 9.
FRANCE
Cartailhac, _La France préhistorique._
Bertrand in _Revue archéologique_, 1864 (List of monuments).
Bertrand, _Archéologie celtique et gauloise_, 2nd edit., 1889.
Déchelette, _Manuel d'archéologie préhistorique celtique
et gallo-romaine_, Vol. I.
Lewis, _Alignements at Autun_ in _Journal Anthrop.
Inst._, XXXVIII, 1908, pp. 380 ff.
Lewis, _On some dolmens of peculiar form, op. cit._,
XL, 1910, pp. 336 ff.
de Baye, _L'archéologie préhistorique_ (Petit-Morin tombs).
Reinach, S., _La Sculpture en Europe_ (Angers 1896.
Figures of the 'dolmen deity').
SPAIN
Cartailhac, _Âges préhistorique de l'Espagne_.
Cartailhac, _Monuments primitifs des îles baléares_.
Bezzenberger in _Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, XXXIX,
1907, pp. 567 ff.
ITALY
_Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana_, XXV, pp. 178 ff.
Nicolucci, _Brevi note sui monumenti megalitici di
Terra d'Otranto_, 1893.
_Bull. Paletn. Ital._, XXXVII, pp. 6 ff.
Mosso and Samarelli, _Il dolmen di Bisceglie_, in _Bull.
Paletn. Ital._, XXXVI, pp. 26 ff. and 86 ff.
SICILY
Orsi in _Bull. Paletn. Ital._, XXIV, pp. 202-3 (Monteracello).
Orsi in _Ausonia_, 1907, pp. 1 ff. (Cava Lazzaro).
Orsi in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1905, p. 432, Fig. 18 (Cava Lavinaro).
SARDINIA
La Marmora, _Voyage en Sardaigne_.
Pinza in _Monumenti Antichi_, Vol. VIII.
Nissardi in _Atti del Congresso Internazionale_, Roma,
1903, sezione preistorica.
Nissardi and Taramelli in _Mon. Ant._, Vol. XVII.
Taramelli in _Memnon_, Band II, Mai, 1908, pp. 1-35.
Préchac in _Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire_, XXVIII.
Mackenzie in _Ausonia_, III, 1908, pp. 18 ff.
Mackenzie in _Memnon_, Vol. II, fasc. 3.
Mackenzie in _Papers of the British School of Rome_, V, pp. 89 ff.
Taramelli, _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1904, pp. 301 ff. (Anghelu Ruju).
Colini in _Bullettino di Paletnologia Italiana_, XXIV, pp. 252 ff.
CORSICA
_Nouvelles archives des missions scientifiques_, Vol. III,
1892, pp. 49 ff.
PIANOSA
_Bullettino di Paletn. Ital._, XXIV, pp. 281 ff.
MALTA
Mayr, A., _Die vorgeschichtlichen Denkmäler von Malta_.
Mayr, A., _Die Insel Malta_.
Zammit, _First Report on the Halsaflieni Hypogeum_.
Tagliaferro, _The Prehistoric Pottery found in the
Hypogeum at Halsaflieni_, in _Annals of Archæology
and Anthropology_, Vol. III, pp. 1 ff.
Zammit and Peet, _Report on the small objects found
at Halsaflieni_ (Valletta, in the Press).
Magri, _Ruins of a Megalithic Temple at Xeuchia, Gozo_.
Ashby, T., and others, _Report on Excavations at
Corradino, Mnaidra, and Hagiar Kim_, appearing
in Vol. VI of _Papers of the British School of Rome_.
Peet, _Contributions to the Study of the Prehistoric
Period in Malta, Papers of the British School of
Rome_, V, pp. 141 ff.
Tagliaferro, _Prehistoric Burials in a Cave at Burmeghez_,
in Man, 1911, pp. 147 ff.
NORTH AFRICA
Faidherbe in _Compte rendu du congrès d'archéologie
préhistorique_, Bruxelles, 1872, pp. 406 ff.
Flower in _Transactions of the International Congress
of Prehistoric Archæology_, Norwich, 1868, pp. 194 ff.
MacIver and Wilkin, _Libyan Notes_.
MOROCCO
_Matériaux pour l'histoire de l'homme_, V, p. 342;
VIII, p. 57; XX, p. 112.
TUNIS
Cartailhac in _L'Anthropologie_, 1903, pp. 620 ff.
Carton in _L'Anthropologie_, 1891, pp. 1 ff.
_Matériaux pour l'histoire de l'homme_, XXI, Pl. VI;
XXII, pp. 373 and 416.
EGYPT AND THE SUDAN
Wilson and Felkin, _Uganda and the Egyptian Sudan_,
Vol. II, p. 123.
de Morgan, _Recherches sur l'origine de l'Egypte_, p. 239, Fig. 398.
PANTELLERIA
Orsi in _Monumenti Antichi_, IX, pp. 449 ff.
LAMPEDUSA
Ashby in _Annals of Archæology and Anthropology_, Vol. IV.
BULGARIA
_Mittheilungen der anthropologischen Gesellschaft in
Wien_, 1888, pp. 285 ff.
_L'Anthropologie_, 1890, p. 110.
CRIMEA
Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, III, p. 722.
CAUCASUS AND CRIMEA
Chantre, _Recherches anthropologiques dans le Caucase_,
Vol. I, pp. 50 ff.
Chantre in _Verhandlungen der Berliner Anthropologischen
Gesellschaft_, 1882, p. 344.
_Matériaux pour l'histoire de l'homme_, 1885, pp. 545 ff.
Borlase, _Dolmens of Ireland_, III, p. 722.
SYRIA AND PALESTINE
_Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Reports_ for
1882; _Annual_, 1911, pp. 1 ff.
Conder, _Heth and Moab_, pp. 190, 293.
Perrot and Chipiez, IV, pp. 341, 378-9.
PERSIA
de Morgan in _Revue mensuelle de l'Ecole d'anthropologie
de Paris_, 1902, p. 187.
de Morgan, _La délégation en Perse_, 1902.
de Morgan, _L'histoire d'Elam_, Paris, 1902.
INDIA
_Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, XXIV, 1865.
Westropp, _Prehistoric Phases_.
COREA
_Journal Anthrop. Inst._, XXIV, p. 330.
JAPAN
Gowland in _Archæologia_, LV, pp. 439 ff.
Gowland in _Journal Anthrop. Inst._, 1907, pp. 10 ff.
INDEX
Abbameiga, 85
Aberdeen, circles near, 38
Adrianople, 114
Africa, 90-6
Aiga, 85
Ain Dakkar, 117
Ainu, the, 122
Ala Safat, 116
Alemtejo, 71
Algeria, 91-5
_Alignements_, 3, 59-60, 89,
119-20, 124, 154-7
_Allées couvertes_, 3, 61, 64
Altar Stone at Stonehenge, 18
Altmark, 57
Ammân, 117
Ammon, 115
Anghelu Ruju, 88
Anglesey, 27, 29
Annaclochmullin, 145
Antequera, 70
Arbor Low, 25
Arcturus, 50, 51
Arles, 64
Arles, Council of, 12
Arran, circles on, 35-6
Arthur, King, 11, 25
Arthur's Quoit, 29
Asia, 114-22
Atreus, Treasury of, 157
Aurelius Ambrosius, 15
Avebury, 23-4, 27-8
Avening, 33, 127
Axe, cult of, 137-8
Axe-shaped pendants, 80, 112
Axevalla Heath, 54
Baetyls, 104, 105-6, 137
Balearic Isles, 71-5
Barnstone, the, 36-7
Barrows, long, 30-3
Barth, 90
Belgium, 58
Bellary, 118
Bell-shaped cup, 64, 81, 136
Beltane festival, 37
Benigaus Nou, 74
Bertrand, 64, 143
Birori, 82, 133
Bisceglie, 76
Bonstetten, 143
Borreby, 54-5
Boscawen-un, 26
Bou Merzoug, 92
Bou Nouara, 91
Boyle Somerville, Captain, 50
Brittany, 59-60
Brogar, Ring of, 36-7
Broholm, 54
Bulgaria, 114
Button, conical, 42, 71, 111, 135
Cæsar, 27
Cairns, horned, 38-9
Caithness, cairns of, 38-9
_Callaïs_, 63, 64, 66, 67, 71, 132
Callernish Circle, 34
Calvados, 64
Camster, 39
Can de Ceyrac, 60
Caouria, 89
Capella, 50, 51
Carnac, 13, 59-60
Carrick-a-Dhirra, 43
Carrickard, 45
Carrickglass, 41
Carrigalla, 49
Carrowmore, 41-2
Cashtal-yn-Ard, 145
Cassibile, 80
Castelluccio, 80, 81
Castor, 50
Caucasus, 114
Cava Lavinaro, 78
Cava Lazzaro, 78
Cave burial, 81, 88
Chagford, 29
Champ Dolent, menhir of, 13
Channel Isles, 67
Charlemagne, 12
Charlton's Abbott, 33
China, 122
Chittore, 119
Chun Quoit, 29
Circles, stone, 15-28, 34-8, 48-51,
60, 96, 115
Cirta, 92
Clava, 37
Clynnog Fawr, 128
Collorgues, 137
Constantine, 91
Contracted burials, 33, 54, 62, 77, 80,
81, 93, 97, 111, 140-1, 153
Coolback, 43
Corbelled roofs, 6, 32, 45, 48,
69, 73, 84, 86, 87, 102-3
Cordin, 105, 108
Corea, 122
Cornwall, dolmens in, 29
monuments of, 26
Corridor-tombs, 3, 43-8, 52-5, 56-8,
62-4, 67-71, 76-7, 96, 118, 120-2
Corse, Cape, 89
Corsica, 88-9
Coursed masonry, use of, 5, 73, 82
Cove, the, 25
Cremation, 35, 42, 66, 140
Crete, 113, 132, 142, 155, 157
Crickstone, the, 30
Crimea, 114
Cromlechs, 3
Cumberland, monuments of, 25
Cup-markings, 117, 127-8
Cyprus, 155
Cyrenaica, 91
Dance Maen Circle, 26
Date of megaliths, 123
Dax, 64
Deccan, 118-9
Déchelette, 139, 151
de Morgan, 90
Denmark, 53-5
Dennis, 76
Der Ghuzaleh, 116
Dolmens, 2, 29, 40-1, 52-3, 56, 58, 61, 67-8,
82, 89, 90, 91-6, 108, 114-9
Drawings on stones, 46, 48, 55, 62, 110
Drewsteignton, 29
Druids, 11, 27-8
Edfu, 90
Eguilaz, 68
Egypt, 155
Ellez, 96
England, monuments of, 15-33
Erdeven, 60
Er-Lanic, 60
Eskimos, 126
Es Tudons, _nau_ of, 73-4
Evans, Sir Arthur, 20, 105
Façades, curved, 78, 145-6
Faidherbe, General, 143
Faustina, medal of, 95
Féraud, M., 92-3
Fergusson, 28, 143
Fibrolite, 63
Finistère, dolmens of, 13
Fontanaccia, 89
Fonte Coberta, 68
Forbes Leslie, Colonel, 119
France, 59-67
Friar's Heel, 18, 21
Galilee, 115
Gargantua, 11
Gaulstown, 41
Gavr'inis, 62, 137
Gebel Mousa, 116
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 26
Ger, 64
Germany, 56-7
Get, 39
Gezer, 124
Giant's Bed, 56
Giant's Tombs, 87-8
Gigantia, 104
Giraldus Cambrensis, 15
Göhlitzsch, 137
Gozo, Is., 104
Greenland, 125
Grewismühlen, 56
Grotte des Fées, 64, 74
Grotte du Castellet, 64
Hagiar Kim, 6, 103-4
Hakpen Hill, 24, 27
Halsaflieni, 108-13, 130
Hauptville's Quoit, 25
Hengist, 15
Herrestrup, 53
Highwood, 45
Hinks, Mr., 22
Hirdmane Stone, 13
Holed tombs, 77, 114, 116, 117, 126-7
Holland, 57-8
Horned cairns, 146
_Hünenbetter_, 45, 56-8
Hurlers, the, 26
Idanha a Nova, 139
India, 118-20
Inigo Jones, 27
Inverness, circles in, 37-8
Ireland, monuments of, 40-51
Iron, 39, 46, 93, 119
Italy, 76-7
Jadeite, 63
James I, 27
Japan, 120-2
Jaulân, 117
Jimmu, 121
Judæa, 115
Karleby, 54
Karnak (Egypt), 22
Keamcorravooly, 44
Keller, 56
Kennet Avenue, 24
Kerlescan, 60
Kermario, 60
Keswick Circle, 25
Khasi Hills, 119
Kingarth, circle at, 36
Kirkabrost, circle at, 36
Kit's Coty House, 29
Knyttkärr, 55
Komei, 121
Kosseir, 118
Labbamologa, 43
Ladò, 90
Lampedusa, Isle of, 96
Lanyon Quoit, 29, 127
La Perotte, 7
Leaba Callighe, 43
Lecce, 76
Lewis, Isle of, 34
Linosa, Isle of, 96, 132
Lockyer, Sir Norman, 21-2, 51
Long Meg and her daughters, 25
Losa, 85
Los Millares, 70, 137, 145
Lough Crew, 45, 48, 62
Lough Gur, 48-51
Lozère, 130
Lundhöj, 55
Lüttich, 58
MacIver, D.R., 93-4
Mackenzie, Duncan, 85, 152, 153
Maeshowe, 36-7
Malta, 98-113
Man, Isle of, 30
Mané-er-Hroeck, 62-3
Marcella, 68
Matera, 77
Maughold, 30
Mayborough Circle, 25
Mayr, Albert, 105
Meayll Hill, 30
Melilli, 80
Men-an-tol, 30
Ménec, 59
Menhirs, 2, 29, 59, 115-6, 123-4
cult of, 12, 123-4
Merivale, circle at, 26
Merlin, 15
Merry Maidens, the, 26
Messa, 90
Minieh, 116
Mnaidra, 100-3
Moab, 115-7
Molafà, 88
Monte Abrahaõ, 71
Montelius, O., 126, 151, 153
Monteracello, 78
Morocco, 96
Mortillet, de, 59, 144
Mourzouk, 90
Msila, 93
Munster, tombs of, 44
Mursia, 97
Musta, 108
Mycenean vases, 81
Naas, 15
Nantes, Council of, 12
Nara, 121
_Naus_, 73-4, 145
_Navetas_, see _Naus_
Neermul jungle, 118
Newbliss, 145
New Grange, 46, 62
Nile valley, 90
Nilgiri Hills, 118
Nine Maidens, the, 26
Nissardi, 84
Norway, 53
Nossiu, 85, 87
_Nuraghi_, 82-7
Obsidian, 77, 134
Odin's Stone, 11, 36
Orkney Isles, cairns of, 38-9
Orry's Grave, 30, 127
Orsi, Paolo, 78, 79
Orthostatic slabs, use of, 4, 69, 74,
80, 96, 100
Palmella, 71
Pantalica, 80, 155
Pantelleria, Isle of, 96-8
Papa-Westra, 39
Pehada, 114
Penrith Circle, 11
Pentre Ifan, 29
Pera, 115
Périgord, 13
Persia, 114
Petit Morin, 66-7, 130
Pfäffikon, Lake, 56
Phoenicia, 154
Pianosa, 89
Picardt, John, 57
Pierre du Diable, La, 58
Pierres Plates, Les, 61
Piper, the, 26
Plas Newydd, 29, 127
Plemmirio, 155
Pliny, 27
Portico-dolmens, 40-1, 52, 119
Portugal, 67
Pottery, 135-6
Reinach, Salomon, 144
Religion, megalithic, 105-6, 137-9
Rhodes, 154
Rinaiou, 89
Rock-tombs, 3, 66-7, 71, 74, 79-81, 88
Rockbarton, 48
Rodmarton, 33, 127
Roknia, 94
Rollright Circle, 25, 29, 50
Saint George, 88
Saint-Germain-sur-Vienne, 12
Saint Michel, Mont, 63
Saint Pantaléon, 60
Saint Sermin, 139
Saint Vincent, 74
Sant' Elia, Cape, 88
Sardinia, 82-8
S'Aspru, 85
Scandinavia, 52-5
Scotland, monuments of, 34-9
Sculptures, 67, 138
Secondary burial, 79, 141-2
Senâm, the, 93-4
Seriphos, 139
Serucci, 85
_Sesi_, the, 97-8
Shap, circle at, 23
Sicily, 77-82
Sidbury Hill, 21
Sidon, 115
Siggewi, 108
Silbury Hill, 24, 28
Siret, Messieurs, 68
Sjöbol, 53
Skulls, 77, 112, 129-31
Sorapoor, 118
Spain, 67-71
Spence, Magnus, 37
Stanton Drew, 25, 49
Star-worship, 23, 50-1, 128
Steatopygous figures, 107, 112
Stenness, Ring of, 36
Stonehenge, 15-23
Stoney-Littleton, 32
Stripple Stones, the, 26
Stromness, circle at, 36
Stukeley, Dr., 27
Su Cadalanu, 84
Sudan, 90
Suetonius, 27
Sun-worship, 21-3, 28-9, 37, 51
Sweden, 52-5
Switzerland, 56
Syria, 115-8
Table des Marchands, La, 16, 137
Tagliaferro, Professor, 108, 111
Tahutihotep, tomb of, 8
_Talayots_, 71-3
Tamuli, 139
Tangier, 96
Tarentum, 76
Tattooing, 139
"Three Brothers of Grugith," the, 128
Tiberias, 115
Tinaarloo, 57
Toledo, Council of, 12
Torebo, 53
Tours, Council of, 12
Trade relations, 131-3
Tregeseal, circles near, 26
Trepanned skulls, 62
Trilithons, 2, 17, 90, 100-1, 103-4, 117
Tripoli, 90-1
_Truddhi_, 86
Tsîl, 117-8
Tunis, 95-6
Tyfta, 54
Tyre, 115
Tzarskaya, 114
Unebi, Mt., 121
Vail Gorguina, 67
Vellore, 118
Villafrati, 81
Villages, megalithic, 74, 85-6, 97
Wales, monuments of, 29
Watchstone, the, 36-7
Wayland the Smith's Cave, 11, 14, 30, 32
Wedge-shaped tomb, 44-5, 55, 70-1, 117
Westgothland, 54
West Tump, 146
Yarhouse, 39
Zammit, Dr. T., 112
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