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
The covered avenues are often built beneath masses of earth, and the
inner rooms became regular hypogea, These hypogea, or subterranean
chambers, are very common near Paris, and we may mention amongst many
others those of Meudon, Argenteuil, Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, Marly,
Chamant, La Justice, and Compans. The tombs of Denmark, the _Gang
Graben_ of Nilsson, show an arrangement somewhat similar, a vast
subterranean chamber being reached by a passage ending in a small stone
cist. The tumulus of Dissignac, near Saint-Nazaire (Fig. 60), shows
this strange arrangement of two galleries running parallel with each
other at a distance of about eighteen feet. The walls and ceilings are
made of slab, anti the interstices are filled in with flints. These
galleries are some thirty feet long, and their height insensibly
increases from about three to nine feet.
[Illustration: 60.]
Covered avenue of Dissignac (Loire-Inférieur); view of the chamber at
the end of the north gallery.
We must also mention the Cueva de Mengal, near the village of
Antequera, in the province of Malaga (Fig. 61) Twenty stones form the
walls of the crypt, five blocks of remarkable size serve as a roof, and
to ensure solidity three pillars are set upright inside of the junction
of the roof blocks. The crypt is some seventy-nine feet long, its
greatest width is about nineteen feet, and its height varies from about
eight to nine feet. The length of the Pastora room, near Seville is
about eighty-seven feet, but its height is not to be compared with that
of the one at Antequera. The square crypt at Pastora is very
interesting. One of the roof stones having been broken, it has been
strengthened by the addition of an inside pillar.17
[Illustration: 61.]
Covered avenue near Antequera.
At Gavr’innis, the length of the passage leading to the crypt exceeds
forty-two feet (Fig. 62), and the Long Barrow of West Kennet is more
than seventy-three feet long by a width in some parts exceeding
thirty-two feet. In the Long Barrows of Littleton, Nempnitt, and Uley,
the crypt is reached by an avenue, the entrance of which is closed by a
trilithon, and a similar arrangement is met with in many megalithic
monuments of Scania. The sepulchral chambers of oval shape, such as
that met with in the island of Moen, were surmounted by a tumulus some
100 yds. in circumference; twelve unhewn stones formed the walls, and
five large blocks the roof. In removing the earth from the Moen tomb,
the bones of several human individuals were found; and a skeleton,
doubtless that of the chief, lay stretched out in the middle of the
chamber, whilst the bones of the others had evidently been ranged
against the walls either in a sitting or crouching position. With the
bones were found a flint hatchet, which appeared never to have been
used, a number of balls of amber, and several vases of different
shapes.
[Illustration: 62.]
Ground plan of the Gavr’innis monument.
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