Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric PeoplesNadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
History
Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples
Nadaillac, Jean-François-Albert du Pouget, marquis de
Archaeology; Prehistoric peoples
To resume, dolmens, called _Hünengräber_ in Germany, _stazzona_ in
Corsica, _antas_ in Portugal, and _stendos_ in Sweden, have all alike
one large flat horizontal slab placed on two or more upright unhewn
stones. This is the one fixed rule; local circumstances, perhaps even
the caprice of the builders, decided the position and the mode of
erection. Often, as I have already remarked, dolmens are buried beneath
tumuli, but exceptions to this are numerous. General Faidherbe, after
having examined more than six thousand dolmens in Algeria, affirms that
the greater number have never been covered with earth.5 In the Orkney
Islands there are more than one hundred dolmens without tumuli, and
Martinet failed to find any trace of mounds in Berry. In Scotland and
Brittany we find dolmens buried, not beneath mounds of earth, but under
accumulations of pebbles, called _cairns_ in Scotland and _galgals_ in
Brittany. However minor details may vary, and they do vary infinitely,
one main idea everywhere dominated the builders, and that was the
desire to protect from all profanation the resting-place of what had
once been a human being.
Cromlechs are circles of upright stones often surrounding dolmens or
tumuli. Sometimes they form single circles, and at others two, three,
or even seven separate enclosures. They are common in Algeria, Sweden,
and Denmark, and in the last-named country two kinds are distinguished:
the _langdyssers_, which form an ellipse, and the _rundyssers_ which
form a perfect circle. In other countries cromlechs are slot so
numerous; there are but few in France, of which we may name those of
Kergoman (Morbihan), Lestridion in Plomeur, and Landaondec in Crozon
(Finistère). The last-named, known its _le temple des faux dieux_, is
closed by a double row of small menhirs. In Italy, the only cromlechs
known are those of Sesto-Calende and those of the plateau of Mallevalle
near Ticino. One of the latter still retains in their original position
fifty-nine huge granite blocks, forming a circular enceinte, a
semicircle, and an entrance avenue. A few leagues from the ancient Tyre
can still be seen a circle of upright stones. Ouseley describes another
at Darab, in Persia; a missionary speaks of three large circles at
Khabb, in Arabia, which circles he compares with those at Stonehenge;
and Dr. Barth tells us of a cromlech between Mourzouk and Ghât.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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