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Page 2
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.
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