Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders Part 6

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 j.a.pan, 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 Judaea, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Amman 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 Jaulan, 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 Tsil 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 a.n.a.logies 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 princ.i.p.ality 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 c.o.c.k 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan, 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 a.s.signed 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 j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan, but of the j.a.panese 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 j.a.pan 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 j.a.pan 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 a.s.sam 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 cla.s.sed 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 a.s.sertion 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 part.i.tion-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. Pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sing 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 Pet.i.t 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 Lozere 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. Sh.e.l.lfish also formed a part of their diet, and the sh.e.l.ls 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 aegean 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 _callas_ in some of the megalithic monuments of France and Portugal. The rarity of this stone has inclined some archaeologists 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 _callas_ 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, sc.r.a.pers, 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.